Philly, DC or Toronto?

[gwen]

Hmm, as for a comparison of the three cities:

Toronto: it has that "I just crossed the border!" flair to it, even
though the only apparent cultural difference to tourists is... the
signs are in french too.

Queen Street is awesome, it's a long stretch of shopping for
alternative and underground needs including a hell of a lot of good
deals to be found.  The clubs are fun, though unless you really know
someone in the scene, they're hardly likely to come up and talk to
you.  Further, if they find out you're an American, there's a good
chance they'll just politely excuse themselves and not want to talk to
you again (unless you're introduced by a Canadian).

There is a Toronto-goth website that has a lot of incredibly useful
information, and will help you through any weekend's worth of
activities.  Non-goth touring is also fun, with a few very well-placed
art galleries (they're just a few blocks off Queen St), several parks
along the lake, and the wonder Ontario Science Centre north of
downtown (this one does require transportation to).  The public
transportation system is pretty damn good as well, with lots of
streetcars (we'd call them trolleys), buses, and subways running
through the city.

DC: It's less accessible than either of the other two cities, with
locations to go visit much more spread out, and often confusing to get
to (sorry Adam, but I've been defeated by the roads there on a few
occasions).  However, the goth clubs are incredibly friendly; I've
always found it easy to find new people to talk to there, even though
I was obviously a visitor in town.  Public Transportation is pretty
much the Metro, which is good, but not nearly as omni-present as I'd
like.  On the other hand, I'd recommend it over driving in the city.
Non-goth touring is also excellent with museums, historical landmarks,
and etc so prolific that it's impossible to hit them all.

Philadelphia: It feels order than DC or Toronto, perhaps because DC
and Toronto blew each other up at some point in our history, and
Philly remained unscathed, or perhaps because Philly has done a lot
less construction in recent times.  :)

Anyway, Philly has South Street, which is hands down my favorite
shopping place, ever.  It's expensive, quite a bit moreso than
Toronto's Queen Street, but I just can't resist Digital Ferret,
Zipperhead, The Wooden Shoe, and Armed and Dangerous all so close to
each other.

The goth clubs are uppity, though I've had people randomly come up to
me in the past -- and then tell me about how everyone else there is so
uppity!  However, I've also almost always found people from
Pittsburgh's scene visiting out there at the same time I was, so I get
some amount of friendliness regardless.  The clubs have been degrading
over the years.. Shampoo is good, but I can almost never get there on
Wednesday night to enjoy it.  I've not really been impressed with the
weekend nights in recent years.

Public transportation is so-so... it is a PA funded system (SEPTA), so
prone to many of the problems Pittsburgh has.  It is, however, much
bigger so there are options within the city for getting to place to
place, and there's always the fact that you can catch a train to NYC
for a day very easily (which I've done as well).  Non-goth touring is
good, with art and historical museums galore.

All three cities have incredibly fantastic food in all sorts of ethnic
or other cuisine varieties.  Consider that all three are port cities,
so have that advantage for anything food related or mercantile.

Anyway, that's my summation having been to all three a fair amount
over the years.  I recommend that anyone curious should take time to
visit all three and make their own opinions on the matter, since
things that are an advantage to one person may be a disadvantage to
the next.  But all three are great to visit, IMO!

-- 
gwen.
gamergothgeek