After a 5-hour flight with a bratty retarded boy in front of me, I landed in Philadelphia. Philly is a beautiful city, the train ride from the airport passed by forests and abandoned warehouses. I walked from the train stop to my hostel, which normally would have taken 15 minutes but since I had so much crap with me it took considerably longer. I got in late so I just had vegan Chinese food for dinner and walked around some. The next morning I stopped by Benjamin Franklin's house (didn't see much, I actually just needed to go to the post office that's inside part of his house) on the way to the Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities. Unfortunately no photos are allowed, but that documentary on the History Channel or whatever pretty much covered everything. It was sooo cool, I love medical oddities and seeing them up close is indescribable. I spent over an hour and a half there, even though the museum is fairly small. I saw some kids that looked like they were kind of bored, but when I went downstairs I saw a group of 3 kids and one girl clearly had been to the museum a bunch of times because she knew everything. The conversations were like the other 2 kids being wowed by something and she would be unphased like "Oh yeah, that's a pig fetus". It was cute. (The pig fetus was weird because its snout was elongated and was above its eyes like a horn).
Then I walked to Eastern State Penitentiary. I went on the audio tour narrated by Steve Buscemi (lol), and it was actually really tastefully done. I was disappointed that they didn't talk about the tortures that went on in the 19th century, and that a portion of the jail was reserved for private tours, but it was still all very interesting. What a freaky place that is, I liked how they kept it in a state of disrepair. I went off wandering by myself and this window slammed itself shut as I was approaching it. I would *love* to go back at night, the only night-time tours are Wednesdays in the summer but I'd like to go to one some time in the future.
I walked halfway to the hostel and then took a bus because I was tired from being on my feet all day. After eating leftovers I headed to New York City via Boltbus (which was only $13 and supposedly has free Wifi but I was too busy sleeping to test it out). I stayed in Harlem, in a new hostel that had just opened the day before and was pretty fancy. Unfortunately they had no hot water (and I really needed to shower...), but they gave me a 40% discount so I couldn't complain. I spent a bunch of time planning things I didn't even wind up doing because I overslept the next day :(
But I did go to the Tenement Museum. You get a hour-long guided tour of a few old apartments in a building that had been untouched for over 50 years, and there aren't many people in the tour group. They have a few units set up to look like how they did nearly 100 years ago; it's really as if you're stepping back in time. And it's not hoaky at all, like many of these types of tours tend to be.
There really wasn't anything else I wanted to see in NYC, I just wished I hadn't overslept so I would have had time to eat at a vegan place close to my hostel. Instead I had to settle for gross pizza at the airport, wah.

[insert cool spooky photo of red execution chair at E.S.P. here]