The Fresh Prince-ss

You all know I wasn't born and raised in West Philadelphia but nearly everyone who has asked me about my trip has made some reference to the Fresh Prince, so I thought I had better include some mention of him as well.

I returned from my latest venture to the States this week and it was a great little break. One of the cool things we did included a tour of the Liberty Science Center (yep, American spelling from me on this one!) at Liberty State Park. We had a rainy, but still pretty impressive view of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan from there. The weather was quite dreary for most of the week which is why we went to the Science Center rather than a killer boat ride, but it cleared up for our day in Philadelphia.





Philly is a city I've wanted to see for a long time and it did not disappoint. It is a very grand city, with beautiful squares and fountains and buildings. I really wanted to see the Philadelphia Free Library which worked out well because the Philadelphia Book Festival was taking place at the same time. It is a lovely building in a very pretty part of town.



You look to the right and see the Franklin Museum and straight ahead to pretty old buildings and a gorgeous fountain. I also saw a Quaker School which was very cool. The word "Friends" in the school's name tipped me off pretty well. We went to the Macy's store which is located in one of the city's original department stores and it has a huge organ right in the middle of the store where they play lunchtime concerts. The day was spent with lots of walking, eating, and sign reading. The old part of the city is just gorgeous, including the old cobble streets and Independence Hall. I didn't have an overwhelming desire to see the Liberty Bell, plus there was a long line so we passed that one by. While we were out walking around we randomly ran into one of Nic's friends and his family who were also in the city for the day so it was fun hanging out with them for part of the day.

Probably my favourite part of our day in Philly was going to Temple University, where Nic went to school for a couple of years. It was a beautiful spring/early summer night and the campus was pretty much empty except for the occasional grad student. We wandered around outside and into the buildings which all seemed to be open, even on a Saturday night. Temple is in the middle of a not so great part of town (North Philly) but it is like a little oasis in the middle of it all. There is no place I feel more at home or content than at a university...possibly a sad realization, but it is true.

As always, it was not fun having to leave holiday-land and come back here again but I must say it is good to be back into my work-groove again after having been out of the office so long due to conference, illness and holiday. I know that the rest of the school year is going to go very quickly! It is great being post-illness and back to my regular self. Feeling well again has very clearly shown me how awful I had actually been feeling for some time. I am certainly glad that things are better now. Thank-you for all of your feel better wishes, suggestions of listening and reading material, and gentle teasing about the fact I had mono at this age!

That's it for now. Hope you are all well.