Philly is ....colourful

No, I have not completely abandoned you yet just spent my couple of days in Philadelphia. Strange city. Perhaps it was just my experience with it but it seems to me like a city in need of a good wash. Plus I think I was allergic to it - it could be that it's just really polluted and DC is without heavy industry and so has quite clean air - but I coughed up a lung for two days.

One of my friends lives in probably the worst area of town (not the friend I was staying with) so driving him home was...interesting. At least we kept the hubcaps on the car. We did a few tourist things - the Liberty bell, Benjamin Franklin's grave and home and then some strange things - the Mummers' Museum- not the British mummers but a strange Philly custom of men dressing in fancy costumes (usually as animals or woman) and parading down their main street on New Year's Day. The museum was awesome. Likely built in 1958 and hasn't been touched since. And nothing worked. I think we were the first visitors in months -or ever- I thought it was weird and creepy and brilliant.

And I had water ice. This is a Philly thing. It's like a slushy but thinker and less watery- so maybe like a slushy crossed with a snow cone. It was refreshing on a 92 F day. I had the cherry which is a apparently their most popular flavour but I did find it odd as a phenomenon. I mean, it seems to be everywhere in the city but no one outside of the city knows what it is.

OH and we went to a drive up teller. Not a drive up ATM but an actual teller. Well a teller at the end of a speaker that you sent things back and forth to through a tube. I have never heard or seen such a thing but Arlington now tells me they are everywhere. Is it just me that didn't know about them?? It was so weird and strange! Anyway, you know I'm easy to please when I find that exciting....

Overall a good couple of days but not a city I'm going to rush back to.