The fresh prince has left the building

Innnnn West Philadelphia born and raised
On the playground where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school
When a couple of guys said "we're up in no good"
Started making trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said "you're moving with your aunt and uncle in Bel-Air"

So, Will Smith was sent away to the safety of LA (! has anyone seen 24) and I find myself bang in the middle of the immortalised West Philly. I should've been mugged by now right??? Nah, I don't need rescuing yet...here's a bit of context for you about where I am. Philly is the 5th largest city in the US and West Philly has always been the poorer area of town, but is home to the University of Penn, the Ivy league school/uni. Over the past 7 years Penn has implemented mortgage program enticing their staff to move into West Philly. This has been a huge success and has brought many many businesses to the area and basically regenerated the whole place. It is now to the point where we can't afford to rent anything here!

We are staying in a studio flat at the top of a HUGE Victorian house in a very leafy area of town. It comes complete with creaky floorboards, dusty antiques and that unmistakable old lady smell. And has one of those great front porches complete with swing, very important for the complete American experience! I have spent the first 5 days coming to terms with the enormous changes that have happened in the past 2 weeks - marriage, new city, new job etc. In the first few hours there was a lot of nearly throwing up, staring into space and restraining myself from turning around and racing back across the Atlantic road-runner style. Those feelings are still here but are a small whisper in my head not the full blown roar they were 5 days ago.

Due to the joys of jet-lag the first days here have been starting at 6.00am and ending at 9.00pm, hardcore I know. (We made it till 10 last night.) They have been filled with:
driving around the city
starting accounts
filling in a million forms
looking at houses
walking around in horrendous humidity and getting cranky
unpacking
frequenting Tar-shay (formerly known as Target
swinging on front porch swings
trying to figure out where to buy wine and beer
realizing wine and beer are sold in separate places
finding the places to buy wine and beer
buying wine and beer
grilling anyone about the city and where they think we should live
getting bitten by very hungry mosquitoes.

With all of this and a lot more (the list was getting a bit long) my first impressions of Philly are really positive. Everyone I've met has been unbelievably helpful and friendly, interested in what we are doing and willing to give us any advice they can.

The plan is to move into a rented place next month but trying to decide where to live is nearly impossible as we have no idea whether one area is better than another. Philly is called the city of neighbourhoods and it really lives up to it. You can be driving down a street and in the space of a mile you can go through a moderately OK area, a really run down area and then suddenly find yourself in upper class suburbia.

Once all of my feet-finding and jet-lag is finished I'll hopefully get a little more interesting and stop going on about neighborhoods! I'm just a little overwhelmed right now. I did, however, meet the most obsessively tidy person in the world the other night. This person, who will remain unnamed, poured wine using a kitchen towel around the neck to catch any drips and broke into a sweat when a glass was put down without a coaster. At one point some boxes were brought down from this person's attic and I couldn't help but notice that each one had a typed label listing every item...this person is now my ultimate tidy standard - if I can get half way there I'll be surpassing myself (especially considering the state of this place right now.)

Love and hugs

Listening to: The very best of Al Green

Sitting on: Sofa in temporary apartment

Weather is: glorious (why am I inside?)

Feel like: chatting