My travels to PA, NJ and NY

Well the family went up to the mid-atlantic area of Philly PA, Mount Holly NJ and New York NY.

My first impressions and lasting impressions are as follows.

The last time I was anywhere near the northern east coast / new england area was during my travels to Boston MA and I absolutely loved the greater Boston area. Boston is substantial and rich in countless ways not least of which is with regard to culture and history.

As for this trip at hand and which this thread is about:

This trip provided my first glimpse of Philadelphia PA and may I say....

Philly was a complete and utter let down for me. In fact it just was flat out horrendous and awful. I had thought I would really appreciate seeing the Liberty bell etc. but I must say Philly was what I would call a filthy, broken down American city with speckles of historic buildings and other history in the middle of a semi more modern unkept and ugly city filled with filth and the feel of unease and rude people. Let me say I was taken with how filthy, dirty and unfriendly Philly was. I would NEVER wish to return to this place. Ever.

I did however have great pizza and cheese steaks while there.... Not much else.

One other area of PA we visited was the King of Prussia mall. This part of our travels felt like we were back in Dallas Texas. Very consumer oriented.

Now... all my life I have known people who relocated to Dallas / Fort Worth from New Jersey and always spoke very highly of New Jersey so for me NJ carried some mystery to me. I had to see what this NJ was all about which Italian Americans who I knew in my hometown always spoke highly of. Mount Holly is where Heather has family. I met her grandmother on her father's side. Stayed at the home of one of her aunts and I must say.....

Mount Holly and south jersey are a pure pleasure and a breath of fresh air to me. We visited Ocean City and enjoyed the boardwalks there and at Wildwood. We also got to spend several nights at the beach home of her uncles folks at wildwood. It was a beautiful home close to the Jersey shore. I loved every bit of this leg of our trip. But just outside of Mount Holly the home of her aunt and uncle was beautiful on 2 acres with trees and soybean fields across from them and to the side of them. Very beautiful countryside. Blueberries are grown all over. I saw squash and pumpkins growing. As are all kinds of local Jersey produce. So much beautiful farmland and two lane roads knit together south jersey. It is a far difference from the metroplex I am used to living in here in Dallas / Fort Worth. We went down to Cape May and I loved the old homes. Not to mention the old homes in Mount Holly. Mount Holly is Norman Rockwell America all the way and I have never seen so many homes with American flags waving mounted on the homes.

We also spent a leg of our trip in New York City. I rather enjoyed NYC and found it to be almost as I suspected it to be. The financial district where wall street is located was smaller than I had envisioned it. The statue of Liberty was a pleasure to see. Times Square was a very energetic and was cool to see. Central park was huge and a nice asset to NYC. Everyone we encountered was friendly. The weather was beautiful and the apple stores were really cool. Chelsea Market was interesting and not nearly as big as I thought it would be but none the less cool. Back to the financial district area of town I must mention Ground Zero.

I can't explain my feelings when I saw this area. Trust me I had many thoughts... Walking down the stairwells of the adjacent train station was a strange feeling for us. All I can say is that I was very put off by seeing the name "silverstein properties" plastered all over the neighboring buildings.

Rockefeller plaza was fun to see and parts of some of the NBC studios etc.

I took lots of pictures and saw a very interesting bit of mosaic artwork down in the NYC subway where there was the all seeing eye overseeing the globe. A bit of interesting symbolism here and there in NYC...

All in all:

Philly major let down, filthy and run down. I NEVER wish to revisit this place.

New Jersey (Mount Holly and South Jersey) blew away my expectations and I would love to go back any day.

New York City was really a cool and full of energy city. I would return to visit again.

Fellows

One thing they do right up there is the following:

http://www.yuengling.com/

Had me a taste of that and I must say...

It was not at all bad stuff !!

Fellows

You should have seen this one elevator we got on at the public transportation stop. It had urine, vomit and God knows what in it. We were in this thing trying not to breathe. We get off at street level just across the Delaware river from NJ and man trash blowing, gum every square inch of the pavement. Filthy dressed bums, filthy this and filthy that... Did I mention the trash everywhere?


It was all one could do to turn on the filthshield wipers hoping to see something worth seeing after a while.

It never happened.

Had to leave the city of brotherly love LOLOLOLOLOLOL Yeah RIGHT...

Fellows

Let me stress..... You dudes are lucky in that way....

I sure wish that one day they expand past the 11 or so states they distribute to now.

Texas needs some Yuengling on the shelves.

Fellows

Don't worry, I am not completely trying to bash the place. Here in Texas we love to all hate on Houston.

But I can tell you this.... It was not the 10% of the city where we stopped to get gas before returning the rent mini-vans at the airport.

boy was that the hood....

No fear not my first time in the hood. All areas have their "parts" which don't represent the area well but darn it something about the city of brotherly love I just can't put my finger on.

Fellows

I did but it was short and sweet and a segmented sort of visit. I had Boston MA kind of expectations for the place and it is my fault for having that level of expectation.


I hear you and understand what you are saying.

That is my way of bashing the area I live in. Almost all of my area is consumer oriented. I am not saying this is bad or good. But when I was in the KOP mall I felt as though I was in the Dallas / Fort Worth area.

I will have to find out the name of the Pizza place but it was next door to Campo's where we had cheese steaks and I loved both!

I want to apologize for possibly too harshly judging the city.

Fellows