Trip - part three

Tuesday we did some great workshops looking at public health and urban agriculture and school projects to teach kids about food. Then on the evening they took us to Reading Terminal Market on a fleet of yellow school buses for a reception. The market was closed and they had a dozen stalls open for us to eat from and a band playing. It was great, delicious icecream, greek food, mexican, more organic beef and yummy cheese. My favourite was called Vampire slayer. We watched the presidential debate on the TV in the beer garden with our US colleagues. This was much more fun than our politics - more like a reality TV show. Senator McCain has dentures that whistle and sounds like Hughie Green, the man who used to host Opportunity Knocks. 'I wanna tell you frens'
Senator Obama seemed pleasant enough but overly cautious so you still really couldn't get his measure. It was a really memorable evening.
Wednesday bought the plenary on climate change - very interesting but some sweeping assumptions were being given as facts and the historical context of natural climate change was ignored in favour of the last three hundred years. For me this devalued the points they were making which was a pity as some of them were very valid.
We then attempted to check out - due to the screw up we almost couldn't pay our bill and had to pay some of it in dollars as they couldn't get the company card to work and had locked my card out. Eventually we sorted it out and avoided arrest. We then caught the bus into Philly to see the market when it was open and to visit the tourist sites.
The market was great, we bought chillies and Amish stuff and had lunch at a salad bar where you buy your food by weight. We then made our way to the Independence Centre where I bought La a Ben Franklin bear. The centre is a lovely building, with great design. We went to see the Liberty Bell and exhibition which again was fascinating, before winding up at Penn Landing.
Shopped and Touristed out we set off for the airport. We checked in on time and went out to the plane only to find we were blocked in by a UAA plane, we spent two hours on the tarmac while they moved the plane and let thirty other aircraft take off. Flight was okay till we got to Heathrow where we circled for thirty mins due to fog on the runway. This then meant we couldn't attach to the building and had to be parked on the tarmac. The first set of steps they bought jammed and we waited again for another set of steps before we could get off and be bussed into Terminal Five.
We got tickets for the National Express coach back to Birmingham as by now it was rushhour in London and we didn't think the tube was a great idea.
It turned out the bus wasn't either - apparently due to lots of accidents on the M25 it was an hour and a half late.
We finally managed to persuade the driver of the bus to B'ham international that he could take us to the airport there as we knew we could pick up a train. Although as it happened Mr Nell came and got us.
I finally got home at 2.30 pm almost twenty four hours after we'd checked in at Philly and having been awake for over thirty hours - no wonder I'm still tired!
All in all the most amazing trip and I'm so grateful to my job that I had this wonderful opportunity to experience all these amazing things. Who'd have thought after all the problems over the last few years?

Trip - part two

Monday was the first day of the conference so we attended the plenary and workshops. Lots of interesting things going on. We learned a lot about problems in US cities with food deserts and race issues. We also learned that in the US cider is not an alcoholic drink - apparently it's apple juice. (We'd wondered why they served it at breakfast)
As evening rolled around we decided to take a cab into Philly to explore. So we set off with no clue where to go - maps appeared to be in short supply - the driver said Market street was the best place. He dropped us off in an area that reminded us of Camden in London, lots of really cute shops and bars.
We were marginally put off eating there by the squashed dead rat in the middle of the road. We spent a good couple of hours buying gifts for our kids and window shopping then as we had been asked by virtually every inhabitant of Philly if we'd tried the cheesesteak yet, we thought we'd give it a go.
We chose a ratfree looking establishment which actually was a really nice sports bar called Fat Tuesday with friendly staff. It was huge - the bread roll it came on was at least twelve inches long. The meat wasn't like the steak we'd expected but was more the texture of dona kebab meat with what looked like yellow melted plastic on top. It tasted okay but wasn't something either of us felt we'd rush back for. I think it's probably an acquired taste.
Having done our duty via the cheesesteak we carried on meandering down Market street then Tim decided he should see if American guiness was the same as our guiness so we ended up in an Irish bar called Paddywhackers. Once inside we were shangaied by a lovely lady called Peggy to play quizo - this is the same as our pub quiz.
We didn't really think we'd do any good as the questions were naturally all about the US but as Tim needed to compare guiness samples and by now my feet were aching we felt we should have a bash. We came second - we're still not sure how.It was a really good night and Peggy and her gang made us feel very welcome in the city.
Tommorrow I'll blog about our trip to the Independence centre and Reading Terminal Market

Trip journal

Now I've had some sleep and am a little more coherant I'll give you the run down on the trip.
The journey down to Heathrow was pretty smooth and we flew from Treminal 5 which we thought was amazing - very James Bond with all the technology. We landed in Philly mid afternoon and the view of the city as we landed was stunning. It really is a very beautiful city with the rivers and the glitzy skyscrappers of the busness area but with the older Chelsea style houses and the historic centre still intact.
We were a bit amused and slightly baffled by discovering all the taxi drivers we encountered were asian immigrants and the taxi's were very tatty - no leg room, slashed and damaged upholstery. I think we'd kind of expected Robert De Niro or Danny DeVito to be driving lol.
The hotel for the conference was in Cherry Hill which involved a trip over a stunningly gorgeous bridge and through the toll into New Jersey or, as the natives pronounced it, Noo Joisey.
We had a few problems with the hotel in that for a international chain they had no clue about international guests. They managed to mess up all the payments for our booking and even got my credit card blocked by keying it too many times. The rooms were nice though, lovely comfy beds. However my room had a problem with a lack of hot water and the bath didn't have a plug.
We decided that American TV is dire - no international news at all, and the quality of the programmes and lack of definition between the adverts left you feeling dizzy.
Our first full day there was spent on fact finding trips. Tim, visited Farmadelphia, a collection of food growing projects in an urban setting, which he found very interesting especially the hydroponic lettuce production.
I visited Rodale, an institution that researches climate change and organic growing methods. This was less satisfactory - partly because we didn't get as much time as I would have liked to tour the farm and also there was a strange feel about the place. The work they were doing was interesting and it was a worthwhile visit in many respects but I was left with a niggly - something missing - feeling.
Sunday evening was also the welcome reception for the conference. This was very cool and we met some interesting people who were working on some cool projects including film making and work on Native American reservations.
Philadelphia has very good cheese - not just the well-known brand - and the company was good.
For me, a big disappointment was the coffee - everyone had warned us that the tea was bad but I had high hopes of the coffee. Sadly, everywhere we went we found the coffee to be lukewarm - it is never it seems served hot - and burned tasting where it's been over brewed. The bread was also universally bad - hard and shiny almost plasticated on the outside and chewy and tasteless on the inside. The fresh producxe was lovely however and the organic beef was to die for, it was so yummy. Even Tim who isn't normally a beef eater really enjoyed it.
Back tomorrow with part two - the workshops and how we did in a quiz in an Irish pub in Philly.

Back in blighty

Finally made it home this afternoon after the journey from hell. I'll post more about the trip when I've had some decent coffee and a good sleep. Lots of positives about Philly and just a few minor things that I don't know if they are true across the US or just if we were a bit unlucky. I managed some writing during the flights but I don't know how much i'll use until I transcribe it onto the computer. That's a job for tomorrow though, after 36 hours up with only four hours sleep I'm a bit woozy.

Hi from Philly

Just a quick fly by posting from the city of cheese! We made it here in one piece and are enjoying the lovely sunshine. We've been told we should visit the Rocky statue and the Liberty Bell and eat a Philly cheesesteak sandwich so if we can navigate the US buses we plan to go and explore later today.

go!

Okay, I'm all ready. If I can get access and time to update while I'm there I'll do a fly by post - if not then be good while I'm gone!

On your marks..

I think we're pretty well set for the trip. Just need to get my expenses money changed into dollars and find a suitable bag to pack my things in. Apparently I can check in on line tomorrow and print off my boarding pass! I have a ton of paper to look at while I figure out which workshops I want to do and all the really cool events they are putting on. I'm getting really excited now about it all. It's felt a bit unreal as it's happened so quickly and there was such a lot to do to prepare for the trip.
I'm still undecided about taking my laptop. On the one hand I could get lots of writing done during the journey but on the other hand I don't know if I can cope with carrying it and my bags on the trains and plane and buses. What to do?