Blogs from University City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, North America

This is my first blog ever and I am very excited. I have always wanted to do a blog but for one reason or another have not gotten around to it. Well today was interesting. At around 5 a.m. Mr Summer started to chew on the 5 lb bag of cough drops I bought from CVS and keep next to the bed. I shooed him away for a while before he went to chew on something else. 10 minutes later I awoke to Doug mumbling something about the clock and Mr. Summer. I ignored him and went back to sleep for the next few hours, periodically waking and thinking, "Sheesh, it's taking a long time for the alarm to go off today." When we finally got up it was nearly 10 am and I was way ... read more

All, To dear readers of my blog - I didn't realise there were any! Sorry I have been slack with the blog. I have arrived in Philadelphia already. I didn't update the blog often during my travel due to both lack of time and not always reliable internet services. Good news is I kept a travel diary so I will be able to backdate the blog exactly as events happened, and that's what I plan to do in the next few weeks. Stay tuned! Ben... read more

Well, folks, it's time once again for my standard pre-departure entry. I'm currently in Philadelphia, working at the same law firm I worked at over the summer, seeing Brian, earning some money, and getting everything together to go to London School of Economics (henceforth, LSE) for the year. My flight leaves from Newark Saturday night, and I'm very excited (and a little apprehensive). Honestly, though, at this point my biggest fear is that for some reason or another I'll be turned away at the airport. I've gotten my student residency permit, but they still require you to show letters from LSE, my home school, and my parents proving that I am enrolled in a program and that I'm not going to be a burden on the extensive British welfare system, and I'm afraid that if even ... read more

While in my army days i was staying near philadelphia,pa,And it was at valley forge,pa.And also phoenixville,pa.And when i'd go home on leave i'd allways would go through philly to get home to york,maine.And the hard part back then was i had to return to the hospital on that sunday.And all i was saying was philly happened to be one city i'd travelled and had been too.And theres been many of them i've been to within my life.lothar patten-traveller.... read more

I've just begun my staging, and I have to admit--so far, things are amazing! I have met some really cool people! There are three groups here: Cameroon, Malawi and Madagascar. There are some pretty amazing and fun volunteers. We have a total of four from Montana--Sienna and I, Tony from Anaconda and Danny from Coram. Tony is very gregorious--great guy! He's going to Malawi. Danny is coming to M'car with me and he's pretty cool too--looks like we have some white water in our future! It is still very surreal, but ultimately quite amazing that we are all going! Needless to say, we're having fun, we're excited, and it's going to be an awesome adventure!... read more