One Day in Philly on a Budget by Kristen

Our budget and our calendar for adventures have dwindled a bit since I went back to school. That being said, we still look for every opportunity possible to do some exploring! Since I had to travel to Philly for a few days for school recruiting, I convinced Kenny to come with me and make an adventure out of it. Neither of us had ever been to Philly so naturally we based our trip off of the sights featured in the movie National Treasure (I'm half kidding). We jumped on an early flight and landed in Philly before 8. We found it pretty easy and cheap to take the train from downtown to Center City. It was about $6 each for a ticket one way. There was also a full day pass for $13 each, but we planned on walking the rest of the day to save some cash.  After dropping at our luggage at an Air BnB we headed to the Independence Visitor Center. This is the best place to go for information as well as free tickets to the Independence hall tour. They start giving out tickets at 8:30 and they're first come first serve for the next available time slot. If you're walking from the visitor center to Independence Hall, you will walk right past the Liberty Bell. We had some extra time before the tour start time, so we queued up and saw the Liberty Bell on the way. It was interesting to read about the history and the symbolism of the bell in so many other movements for equality and freedom (outside of the American Revolution). From there we headed to Independence square. We still had some time so we visited the West wing before starting the tour. Definitely worth a stop! The building houses some original printed copies of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the US constitution. Next we went on the tour in Independence Hall where we got to see the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed as well as the first congress. The tour guides were amazing and especially skilled at explaining the risk and the opposing viewpoints that the founding fathers faced in the context of modern day society and issues. It was much more interactive and thought provoking than I had expected.  Right next to Independence Hall was Congress Hall which runs tours every 20 minutes or so. The building was originally constructed as the Philadelphia County Courthouse, but became the home of Congress for a period when Philly was the nation's capital (1790-1800).  After wrapping up at Independence Square we went for a Philly Cheese Steak at Steve's Prince of Steaks. It wasn't cheap, but we walked away with two huge sandwiches - one with cheez whiz and one loaded up with provolone, lettuce, and tomato. I wasn't expecting it, but the cheez whiz one was my favorite.  After lunch we headed over to the Benjamin Franklin Museum. To be honest, we chose this museum over the others primarily because of the cost. It was only $5 - which was about a quarter of the price of the other options. And it was totally worth it! The museum was a lot of fun and we learned a lot about Ben. By the time that we left there was a Fall Nor'easter rolling in with more wind and rain than was comfortable walking around outside. We ended up finding an awesome Ramen place for dinner (Terakawa Ramen) (I would put it in the top 3, but Kenny disagrees). Then we went back to the hotel and watched National Treasure and pointed out all of the spots we had just visited :)

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