So it was back into our subaru hitting the highway to philadelphia! Now Michael had told me that i was reading the map and had warned me that the route involved quite a few interchanges between highwasy so i had to know where we were going!!!! So like the proffesional navigator that i am i dutifully memorised all the roads on the 7 1/2 hour drive down south to philadelphia! Yet again on a travelling day the weather was scorching hot (gutted!) but thank god for air conditioning! The drive was painless till we got into the centre of the city where it went a bit hairy but a few harsh exchanges and a couple of wrong turns later we arrived at the car depot in one piece!

Had to negotiate another city underground (the worst one so far!) and made it to market street and 46th! Fair to say on leaving the station that this was not a neighbourhood we wanted to be in or would ever be coming to again it was rough felt like the middle of the bronx where two white faced backpackers stand out like sore thumbs! Fortunately as we walked nearer the hostel the area got better and our hostel was near the uni halls and felt much safer!

This was our first experince of shared dorms with mike in a dorm with two turkish boys and me in with 5 other girls! Was a bit anxious at first but was actually ok and could definitely do it again! We dumped our bags and headed back into the centre to explore! (found a different underground too!). Our first evening was pretty short so we had a brief wander round ther a couple of drinks and a mexican meal then back to the hostel.

Maybe a bit ignorant of us but we had no idea that there was so much history in philadelphia! It was the countrys capital before wahington took over and it is where the declaration of independance was written and passed! This is also where the first congress of the US used to meet! So we spent the day educating ourselves with a bit of american history (which they love telling you about). Franklin is also all over this city so we learned a lot about him too and that man had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies! With very weary legs we attempted to find a bar for a drink which may sound easy but in this city its all geared around food so you just cant get a drink!! Eventually found a bar had a few drinks then stumbled home picking up a slice of pizza with all the students on the way home!

Our street was home to all the fraternity and sorority houses and as it was thursday night there were lots of house parties which made for a very entertaining walk home!

The next morning and the rain was back! So we spent the mornign in the hostel on the computer. At lunch time we got wrapped up and ventured into town to get some lunch and to see the franklin parkway a long stretch of yet more history! Then took in a few shops to shelter from the rain. Had a few drinks a bit of dinner then home to bed as we ere catching an early greyhound bus to washington dc!

lots of love M&T