Andrew Jackson ’18 – Everything seemed to go as planned as everyone loaded into the two vans early in the morning, so we could drive up to O’Hare for our flight to Philadelphia, then fly to Rome from there. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had a different idea. Of course, it decided to snow a TON up in Chicago the day we were supposed to fly out. The snow caused a 3.5-hour flight delay from Chicago to Philadelphia, causing us to miss our connecting flight to Rome. Though this delay put a damper on things, the encouraging and fun spirit and attitude among the Wabash men and professors made things much better than what they could have been.
Instead of sulking about missing our connecting flight, we scheduled a flight for the following day’s evening and took advantage of that day to go to the city of Philadelphia. We turned the day of Philadelphia into one of adventure. We saw the Liberty Bell and the colonial buildings from that era in Philadelphia. Following our flashback in time, the majority of us went to Jim’s Steaks to have our very first genuine Philly cheesesteak! Yum! To conclude our trip, we got to witness runners in the marathon, which place in the city as we walked to the Rocky Steps. Though it may not have been the ideal situation to be in Philadelphia over Rome, we made the most of it. As I’m sitting on the plane and looking out of the window, I can’t help but smile and get excited as we finally begin our last stretch to Rome. WAF!
Zac Maciejewski ’17 – So, the trip got off to a rocky start. Instead of writing this blog from Rome, like I was supposed to, I am writing from the City of Brotherly Love: Philadelphia. Winter decided to unleash its pent-up wrath on Chicago at the worst possible time. A predicted 4:30 pm arrival to Philadelphia from O’hare turned into an 8:40 pm landing. Needless to say we missed our connection to Rome and were forced to stay the night in Philadelphia (much thanks to Ms. Teague for finding a hotel for us and for everyone else who has made this trip possible!!). But instead of letting the disappointing turn of events drag us down, we made the most of it. We saw the liberty bell, city hall, and independence hall. We saw neo-colonial architecture and some beautiful Greek and Roman architecture. But most importantly, we did not forget the cheesesteak.
After talking with numerous locals, the consensus was that Jim’s, an establishment that has been clogging arteries since 1937, offered the best sandwich in the city. Squeezed between a sketchy smoke-shop and an exotic clothing bodega, the fine people of Jim’s roast hundreds of pounds beef per day. Eating the behemoth of a sandwich was impossible without gobs of cheese and beef juice oozing out of the open-faced Italian roll that could barely stand up to the task of holding the sandwich together.
It certainly stinks that we missed a day in Rome. But like all Wabash men we found a way to make the best of our situation. After a long day in the city, we are officially sitting in our terminal waiting for Rome!
