After a second overnighter from North Carolina to Maryland, I was taken to my aunt’s house in the suburbs of Baltimore, where I spent a few lovely (and free) days with my family (including mother and sister who came over from England) and went to my cousin’s wedding which was a suitably joyous occasion.
From there I toggled south a tad to DC, and had a great time meeting up with all my fantastic friends from the Obama campaign last autumn. My old partner in phone-banking crimes and fellow music obsessive Steve was good enough to host me, and drive me all over the place. I took a peek at American University, and zoomed off to Annapolis for a day to visit crazy St. John’s, the nation’s third-oldest and most bizarre university.
The students at St. John’s don’t choose their courses. Instead they are given a mammoth reading list, filled with authors like Epicurus and Kierkegaard, and having read all these incredibly insightful and visionary tomes, they form discussion groups of about 15 people and talk about them. That’s pretty much it for four years. It was pretty awesome.
I was fortunate enough to get one of Greyhound’s new fancy buses for my trip to Philadelphia. Greyhound’s made a big deal of these things, but really the only differences are power outlets and wi-fi, and since only about 3% of the clientele own laptops it seems an odd marketing ploy. I enjoyed it at least. And Philadelphia had the first bus station that I’ve been to in America that wasn’t in the very worst, most run down part of town.
As it turned out, this was a shame because Meg, my host in Philadelphia, actually lived in the very worst, most run down part of town, so it would have saved me a trolley ride if the bus station had been there. Meg was a first-class host, and along with her sister and friends I had a great time in Philly. She also worked at Starbucks, meaning free drinks, hurrah! One of her housemates is a Latin teacher, and so I spent perhaps the most surreal evening of the trip so far sitting on the front porch playing chess with some crazy old dude I didn’t know while simultaneously arranging Virgilian hexametres and discussing the minutiae of how to pronounce the word “vincit”, all in visual and audio range of the crack dealers shouting at each other on the street corner.
On day one I strolled round all the historic bits, including the massively overrated Liberty Bell and the massively underrated City Hall, as well as a cool market-place in the centre. I munched a cheese-steak or two (also overrated). On day two I had a quick peek at U Penn (though not for official review – it’s already in the guide) and its anthropology museum (the Egyptian part was breathtaking) before spending a few hours welcoming in the summer solstice at a really really supercool little hidden gem on bohemian South Street: The Magic Garden.
If you ever visit Philly you have to go there – it’s the brainchild of visionary artist and urban reconstructionist Isaac Zagar, and it’s basically a small, multi-facetted apartment and garden all made of pieces of broken glass and mirrors, and old bicycle wheels. You have to see it to believe it, but trust me, it will blow your mind. On the longest day of the year, moreover, it happened to host a special solstice festival with loads of insanely talented, unheard of niche bands and performers, including an incredible DJ set at the end. The Sri Lankan drumming was my favourite, probably.
Anyways, now I’ve found myself, through various accommodation-related mishaps, in the trendy Gershwin hostel in mid-town Manhattan, looking forward to taking a few chomps of the Big Apple in the coming days and hopefully relocating to a less expensive couch asap. Take it easy folks, and stay tuned for the next installment of these quixotic fulminations.
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