Lunch in the US

A nutty loaf please!

The US is full of Subways, McDonald's and Wendy's. But somewhat better are chains such as Panera who do wonderful bagels. And well worth looking out for are the sometimes quirky independents such as Crazy Russian Girls which we found in a small town in Vermont - and it was staffed by crazy Russian girls who did all the baking and soup making on the premises - wonderful stuff!

Yard's IPA - miles better!

We weren't quite prepared for the chilly centre of Philadelphia being almost completely shut down on Thanksgiving. However we found we had a choice of Chinatown, McDonald's or the Hard Rock Cafe. We chose the latter thinking that they might have some reasonable ale and in fact we were pleasantly surprised to find that they served Yard's IPA on tap - a hoppy, meaty, local beer which went well with the pulled pork sandwich (they seem to pull any old kind of meat over here - we had a choice of pulled pork, pulled chicken, pulled beef, pulled turkey - sounds like they're short of sharp knives to me!) Not quite sure why they have a Union Jack advertising the beer. Struck up a rather animated conversation with Juan from Puerto Rico who gave up his seat at the bar so we could eat as well as drink. Juan's young boy was in the hospital over the road (Hi Juan - Hope he's improving!)

Thought we'd got a good deal with the hotel - it's a Holiday Inn Express, very close to the city centre with free breakfast and free wifi. Perhaps I should have looked more closely at the map as we were a stone's throw away from the busy Interstate 95 which even at 4 in the morning was noisy. The very nice hotel staff have moved us though and we're now in a quieter room with a view over the river. (IT PAYS TO COMPLAIN!)




We spotted memorials to Irish and Scottish settlers this morning on the riverbank - there must be something somewhere about the Welsh settlers - a large number of Welsh Quakers arrived here in the 1680's and this is reflected in some of the place names including Bala, Cynwyd, Radnor, Berwyn and Colwyn.

Property's always been reasonable in Cynwyd!