Prison visits and sneaking onto tours

Sorry Mum if the title makes me sound like a bit of a felon ... I can assure you we did nothing illegal, the one thing we did do however was have another incredible 48 hours in Philadelphia.  

I loved Philadelphia so much the first time I just had to go back ! So this past weekend myself and three of my friends - Anna, Bernie and Abby from Penn State spent a whirlwind 48 hours in Philly.

The main reason of our trip was to watch the Kellogs gymnastics tour on the Friday evening.  Now, I know many people at home would like to point out here that I am neither a gymnast, nor  much of a gymnastics fan but I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to watch the US Olympic gymnastics team perform, including Simone Biles (as well as go back to Philly).  The show was definitely directed more at children and families and was so very American and at one point there a video montage pictured of all the athletes reciting the Star Spangled Banner . However the gymnastics was amazing and Simone Biles is absolutely tiny, but absolutely incredible.

The following day we woke up at 5am to drop two of our friends Abby and Bernie at the airport ( as they were flying to Chicago to watch the All Blacks play Ireland).  Exhausted - considering we didn’t go to bed until after midnight Anna and I paid for day parking and then slept in the car until 8.45. 

The first stop on our whirlwind tour ( post car park sleep) was to visit the Eastern State Penitentiary.  Now, visiting a prison is not normally the sort of thing I’m interested in but the prison tour at Eastern State was actually really interesting ! The prison was built in 1829 and closed in 1971 and was the first of its kind in emphasizing reform based on Quaker principles rather than on punishment. In the early days prisoners were kept in complete solitude from other prisoners for the entirety of their stay in the belief that silence would rehabilitate their principles and return them to their inherently good natures. Personally I can’t imagine anything worse than being left alone for so long !  However, the result of such solitude was that many prisoners went insane. Additionally as time went on it became impractical and too expensive for all prisoners to be held in complete isolation. 

As part of the tour we got to see most of the cell blocks, Al Capone's lavishly decorated cell, punishment blocks and death row.

Al Capone's Cell

Two story cellblock

The tour also included an exhibition about the rise in the number of prisoners in US prisons. The US imprisons more people per population then any other nation in the world and this number has dramatically increased since the 1970s.  I was also surprised to discover at the exhibition that New Zealand imprisons more people per 100,000 than Australia and the United Kingdom. Given that New Zealand tends to be quite liberal and has relatively low crime rates I was surprised we surpassed countries which we tend match politically on most issues. 

After the Penitentiary we made our way back into the centre of Philly where we visited the Liberty Bell centre ( which I hadn’t done last time) and Independence Hall. Anna and I somehow ended up going on a tour of Independence Hall despite
 a. not having bought tickets

b. the fact that all the tickets had sold out at 11.30am that day ( and it was now 4pm)

 We somehow had managed to do this by queuing to enter the Independence Hall complex and then accidentally followed a group in inside and all of a sudden we were sitting in a room being given the instructions of how the tour would proceed.  On the tour we saw Pennsylvania State courtroom from the 1790’s and Independence Hall in which both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated by the founders. Unfortunately because we were on the last tour of the day we didn’t get to go upstairs and into the bell tower where the liberty bell itself used to reside. However, it was still an incredible opportunity to be standing metres away from the very chair in which George Washington led the proceedings for the writing the Constitution and to be in the same room in which the declaration of independence was debated.  As our tour guide put it “ we are standing in the very room in which the United States was created” .

The Liberty Bell and me !

The very room in which the US was created

Outside the Benjamin Franklin Institute

Once again, I had wonderful weekend in what is fast becoming one of my favourite cities in America.