In Philadelphia...Day two and Day Three...

The day kicked off with a spot of running. Not me, you understand (I can't stand running and for good reason). No, it was the general population of this great city – for it is a great city. People of all shapes and sizes were wearing shorts and tee-shirts and pounding the tarmac of Broad Street for a 10km run – Broad Street, believe it or not is 10km long, probably longer.

Contestants in the 10k Broad Street run...

I overheard somebody in the lift say there were over 30,000 runners and it was, I must say, a great spectacle. There were police on Trek mountain bikes mingling with the runners, some looking a little puffed and overweight, but clearly there, I'd imagine, to prevent a tragedy like the Boston bombing. We stood on the sidelines taking snaps on our iphones and then dived into a coffee shop where I enjoyed an orange blossom tea (which was seriously good).

At 1000hrs (or thereabouts) I met Martin, my pal in the hotel lobby and we took the train to Chestnut Hill where he lives. What a wonderful place. Beautiful houses, birds tweeting from the trees, the scent of flowers in the air and, most importantly, tranquility. There was a row of decent shops too and I was reminded ever so slightly of a place in the UK called Lindfield in West Sussex, only miles better – not a tacky convenience store in sight.

After a drive around the local area we finished up in the Tavern on the Hill, a small, dark, woody sort of place offering excellent everything from decent ales (I opted for Becks no-alcohol beer) and some good food too. I tried a Philadelphia special: a cheese steak sandwich, which was fantastic.

Tranquility in Chestnut Hill

The local trains (and buses) over here are run by an organisation (or company) called Septa. I jumped on a train leaving Chestnut Hill at 1456hrs and got back to the downtown half an hour later, alighting at Jefferson and heading straight to the convention centre where I'd be based for the next few days.

My colleague and I milled around, had dinner and then hit the sack and now it's Monday – or Day Three – in Philadelphia, a Bank Holiday in the UK and I've done something to my back, which ain't funny. I can hardly walk and it's made worse by sitting down, which I'm doing now. My walking has slowed to a snail's pace, I've keeled over to the right in postural terms and I'm reminded of 2005 when the same thing happened and I felt like shit for months, couldn't sleep at night and was generally in a bad way. I'm hoping things will improve, but it's not looking likely, which means I'll be even worse when I arrive back in the UK on Saturday morning after a long transatlantic flight, which I'm not looking forward to – and I very much doubt if I'll get an upgrade, which would help as it's a night flight and I hate night flights at the best of times, but with this back problem it's going to be very unpleasant.

Philadelphia special: a cheese steak...

I'm writing from my hotel room after lunch in the Hard Rock Café where I had salmon, mashed potatoes and green beans and a couple of very very low alcohol beers, so low, apparently, there was virtually no alcohol at all, or at least I hope that's the case. Our tattooed waitress told us she used to be homeless and a heroin addict, but had turned her life around and was getting married to somebody who was also homeless and had changed his life around too (all's well that ends well). I checked out CVS for Nurofen and they had all these weird brands of pills so I left empty-handed. I don't feel too bad, but when I get up after sitting down it does pain me a bit and I can't walk, but other than that, well, it's fine; actually it's not fine at all and I keep thinking about that flight on Friday evening. All I know is this: it ain't going to get any better. Not for a while at any rate.

The great thing about Philadelphia is that it's a proper city, it's got old-looking, established buildings that wouldn't look out of place in London and it has an established transport infrastructure taking people out to equally established suburbs and because it's not one of the USA's smaller cities, it's one of those places that never sleeps, there are people around all the time, the streets are full of people and cars on the weekends unlike, say, San Antonio where the place empties out, the roads and sidewalks are deserted and I always get the feeling that I'm not in a 'proper' city, like Chicago or New York or Philadelphia.

The 1456 Septa train from Chestnut to Jefferson

What I don't like about Philadelphia is the preponderance of homeless people; they're on every street corner asking for money or cigarettes or harassing people while they eat an evening meal – yes, folks, it's hot enough in May to eat alfresco as we did last night in Pietro's and yes a homeless person passed by on more than occasion (the same person) to ask for cigarettes. I got the feeling that the homeless here were more confrontational than in London, but I might be wrong.