After the Wilderness (sort of) of the Mid-West, we headed off to the bright lights of the East Coast of the U S of A and the multitudes of people that live there.  Our first stop was into Philadelphia, the birth place of America.  It was only a whistle stop, just the one night but still we got to see all the major sites that Philly (as the locals call it) has to offer.  From Independence Hall to the steps of the Art Museum, better known to us as the 'Rocky Steps', we had a brief look at them all from the top deck of the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus.  But really Philly is the place to go if you want to see where America became America ... and that's it.  Way back when a group of locally born smart dudes decided that they didn't want to pay tax to a place that was thousands of kay's away and decided to declare independence from said bully.  Obviously that wasn't part of the British plan and they said 'No' to that request.  A war ensued that became, wait for it, legendary.  It basically set the stage for what we have today, a very dominant Country on the world stage.  If we could do an 'if' scenario, if this didn't happen then the world map would be a lot different.  France would probably still have a portion of the southern states, Mexico would control California, Spain would ship all their old people over to Florida and the UK would even be more complicated with another 'country' brought under their banner.  Even Russia would have a footprint in North America.  Japan would have still attacked Hawaii but that would have been on it's own.  How different would the world look without Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hancock, Adams and all the others that no-one remembers didn't take that stand.
Since we were only here for one afternoon we decided to do only one tour, and where else do you go except Independence Hall.  The building itself is nothing outstanding in today's age but back in 1776 it was an enormous structure and easily the most apt place for such an important meeting to take place.  It wasn't supposed to happen here though if you believe the tour guides.  The building was actually built as the State House of Pennsylvania but was such an imposing building that the Fathers of USA thought that it was appropriate to take it over (as dead-set sign of things to come) although the truth is it was probably offered (but doesn't make it a good story).  When you walk through the halls its hard to imagine all the talk and arguing that must have occurred here as the rooms are so small.  The whole of the new America was discussed in these rooms we were standing in.  Being Australian I didn't get all emotional but I did see a few people near by who were working themselves up with feelings of patriotism, proud of what occurred here.  Truth is all Audrey and I were doing was trying to see where Nicolas Cage, aka Benjamin Gates, was going when he discovered Benjamin Franklin's glasses in that great Documentary, National Treasure.
Philadelphia deserved wore than 1 day but unfortunately that's all we gave it.  There is plenty of time to see more in the future.