Overall ambience: Bright and sunny (although these bonus points really go to the sky for being on top form, rather than to PHL itself). Clean, efficient, restrained.

Number of people who looked dead: 1

Number of elderly men in Panama hats, clinging to 4-foot-long, inflatable pink dolphins: 2

Number of people wearing American flag or eagle-adorned apparel: 4

Number of suitcases abandoned on the tarmac as planes came and went: 1

Friendliness of people encountered: Not effusive, but polite and quick to smile.

Food: Although signs and printed things announce the existence of approximately seven billion restaurants and shops in PHL, I ended up in a bit of the airport where the eating choice was burger-y trash, chicken-y trash or “Asian Chao.” I consumed renowned Asian classic, Bourbon Chicken, which won a score of 7.5 on the tasty trash scale.

Best eavesdropped utterance: US Airways cabin crew lady about to do Nashville run to US Airways cabin crew lady about to do Vegas run and complaining that a 14-hour Vegas layover wasn’t long enough to do “ANYTHING”: “14 hours in Vegas? 14 HOURS IN VEGAS? I could do THINGS in 14 hours in Vegas. I could get PREGNANT in 14 hours.”