A Retrospective Journey to the USA – part 18 (Another Philly Cheesesteak, More Visits, The Liberty Bell, and Baseball)

To read part 17 click here.

A late day for us today.

It all started with a fact checking workshop where I wasn’t the only one asking the question: “should these journalists not already know this stuff” but where the venue at least offered a good view…

We broke for lunch early and visited the Comcast Building’s massive cafeteria – cue Philly Cheesesteak number 2, which was even better than yesterday’s – and a slice of New York style cheesecake made with Philadelphia cream cheese – not the best cheesecake I’ve ever had but very yummy nonetheless.

After hanging around for a while, and getting some photos of the Comcast building itself and some of it’s neighbours, we visited the Philadelphia Inquirer – a newspaper with 200 staff members, 100 of whom are journalists, and 25 photo-journalists! They also had some very cool pro-Union signage, a great view, an impressive wall of past Pulitzer winners, and a team library with many books I would have liked to have been able to borrow.

Taking advantage of the fact that that meeting finished early and that we were right across the street from them, some of us popped across to have a look at the excavated ruins of George Washington’s house and the Liberty Bell (the whole “The World’s symbol for Liberty” did seem a little too ‘Murica!’ though…).

From there it was a short walk to PhillyCAM, a public access cable TV and community radio station that also offers numerous training opportunities for the local community, allowing many of them to create content for the radio and/or TV, podcasts, vlogs, and to go on to greater things or stay on and mentor and train others – a very cool, creative place! The group did nominate me to be one of the people who recorded a sweeper for them, and seemed sufficiently happy with my attempt.

The day ended with a drive out to Citizens Bank Park to watch the home team “The Phillies” take on the “New York Mets”. I of course had to order a hot dog ‘with everything’ (I’ve not been able to get the really bad joke about the Dalai Lama out of my head the entire day…) and managed to find a non-alcoholic beer – though if you’d seen the look the lady gave me when I ordered a Budweiser Zero you’d have sworn I asked her for something else entirely! (though based on what it tasted like she may not have been far wrong…)

To read part 19 click here.