I've said before that traveling is something I want to do more of whenever my schedule permits it; this includes going abroad, of course, but it also means visiting the great cities that are scattered across the United States. Since I live in the greater NYC area, I have the great opportunity to take trips to surrounding cities for flexible amounts of time. From day trips to long weekends, I'm fortunate enough to be so close to so many great places that I could knock them all off my travel list come the end of this year if I wanted to. It's funny, though, because even though I've been to Florida more times than I can count, as well as traveled to Chicago and Boston before, I haven't been able to visit the closest city to my home (not including Jersey City or Newark) until recently.

Philadelphia has always been a place I've been meaning to go to but never have been. With it only being eighty miles from Manhattan and having one of my best friends go to school there for the past two years, I figured finally making my way there should happen sometime soon. So when two of my other friends wants to visit a Marvel exhibit at The Franklin Institute, I made absolute sure that I could actually go. Even though I was only there for five hours total, I made some fast observations, from interesting to surprising ones, about this new place thanks to my keen city knowledge.

If you're a Philly native, please enjoy the blunt thoughts from a Jersey girl's perspective; and if you're not, take these observations into consideration when you make your way to visiting the Birthplace of Independence.

... that even a fictional American hero garners the most tourists.

Francesca DiPisa

Since both my parents are huge Rocky fans, I could not pass up the opportunity to run up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and see the statue created for the fictional character. I even discovered that the soles of his converse are paved in the ground with his name at the top of the stairs. As a full-blooded Italian-American myself, I can't deny that I felt a little fulfilled for climbing the steps.

Not all museums offer discounted tickets for college students.

Francesca DiPisa

I don't know if it was because the limited-time exhibit exclusively did not offer a discount, but it seems there isn't one at all for generic tickets to The Franklin Institute. This was a real bummer for my friends and I, but the prices weren't too bad for the awesome exhibit we got to experience.

I would NOT have appreciated Philly as much if I visited when I was younger.

Francesca DiPisa

I'm honestly pretty happy I haven't visited Philly until now because I definitely would've found it boring if I was younger. Since it does have so much history and great architecture, I appreciate those things now that I'm older and more ~studious~.