Federico Sanchez: Discovering the region, one daytrip at a time

Ever since my first days at Penn, I've always felt a fair amount of guilt because of my unsuccessful attempts to venture off campus a little more often. After all, we've all been indoctrinated by the Penn administration's recurrent advice that all students should take advantage of the wonderful resources available in Philadelphia and its surrounding area.

So if I was so receptive to Penn's go-explore-the-region psychological campaign, what was stopping me from leaving campus? The problem: I was unable to be both awake and out of my pajamas during the daytime weekend hours. And this was only aggravated by the refusal of local attractions to stay open late to accommodate my aversion to weekend mornings. In the face of this sluggish situation, even visits to nearby landmarks such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art always proved to be insurmountable challenges.

That all changed last weekend, over fall break, when my friends and I embarked on a road trip to New Hope, Pa. -- a distant suburb of the city, tucked away in Bucks County.

I was possibly on the verge of ending my on-campus monotony while becoming a successful explorer of this region's wonders! And although I cannot attest with certainty to even the approximate location of this charming little town -- I was merely occupying one of the passenger seats, and have long accepted my acute inability to process geographic orientation -- I can certify that it's only a relatively short drive away from campus.

Even though the 45-minute trek to New Hope is considerably longer than the average 10-minute walk to a frat party, we were still glad to put on a little extra time in exchange for an evening away from the ordinary Penn nighttime routine.

The fresh and crisp autumn air that rushed into the car as we drove into New Hope assured us that our journey had not been in vain. It was early evening on a Saturday and New Hope's main street was busy enchanting visitors with the sights, sounds and tastes of its tiny boutiques, beautiful colonial buildings and inviting restaurants. Amidst this scenery of picture-perfect small town charm, Penn's chaotic urban atmosphere seemed to be not just a few miles away, but actually a world apart.

Instead of picking up a tray at the dining hall and lining up for our predictable daily rations of chicken tenders and mashed potatoes like every other day at Penn; my friends and I headed to Karla's, an quaint little restaurant that could not be any more different from the industrialized coldness of on-campus cafeterias.

After dinner, the night was still young and eventually we gave in to the Halloween paraphernalia oozing out of every corner of the town. We signed up for a "ghost tour" of New Hope's allegedly haunted highlights. But sadly, our expectations of Halloween-rate terror were drastically dashed when we realized that the tour's most terrifying features were in fact its overbooked throng of tourist followers -- we among them -- and our guide's fearless back-to-the-80's perm.

Even though our scary spots tour wasn't exactly a nerve-racking, hair-rising thriller, it was a much needed respite from our normal form of entertainment -- namely, braving the tattered theater seats of Cinemagic just to observe the skinny star of Don't Say a Word repeat her "I'll never tell" mantra over and over.

After visiting some other boutiques and finding out what rose petal ice cream tastes like -- really good, actually -- we headed back to school. On our way back to Penn, I said to myself that maybe this successful daytrip would mark the demise of my previous on-campus-only sedentary habits, and the birth of a new period where I would re-emerge as an accomplished visitor and critic of Philadelphia's regional attractions.

Too bad that my brand new regional explorer personality came crashing down on Sunday, when I realized that I had substituted my planned visit to the Art Museum with sleep, TV and a quick foray into Freshgrocer.

Oh well, there's always a next weekend to go off campus and visit another town, drive down a different road or finally manage to climb up the steep stairs of the P.M.A.

It seems that the excitement over the many wonders of Philadelphia isn't overstated after all. So get a train or a cab or a car and get out there for the day or for the weekend.

The only downside? You might wonder why you didn't do it earlier.

Frederico Sanchez is a sophomore International Relations major from Guadalajara, Mexico.

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