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Published: September 23rd 2008
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Philadelphia was the only place we were going to on our round the world trip that we had already been to before. Our friends live just outside Philadelphia in a town called Plymouth Meeting, and as we were driving in, Elaine started to remember places she had been many times and it was all a kind of coming home feeling!
We spent a long weekend in Plymouth Meeting, enjoying spending time with our friends talking about our adventures so far. It was great to be in a home again, and simple things like enjoying a home cooked meal and watching the baseball in the evenings were very much appreciated! On the Saturday, tropical storm Hanna, hit causing heavy rain and strong winds, there was even a tornado about 30 miles away (only a small one though), but the rain didn't bother us as we enjoyed the day playing with Ryan and Angeline on their games system, the Nintendo Wii... and it was so much fun! We had seen the adverts at home where people use the motion controllers to mimic all sorts of things, like running, playing tennis, golf, boxing etc. but we never thought it would be this much
fun. We have to admit though, it was hard work some times keeping up... we must be getting old, but we think we did pretty well! No doubt a Wii will be on our shopping list when we get home... and maybe we can have a re-match or two across the Internet one day!
One of the other things we were looking forward to while in Philly was catching the opening weekend of the NFL season, as we had managed to get hold of a couple of tickets to go and see the Philadelphia Eagles play the St Louis Rams. Now, the Americans really know how to put on a show when it comes to the NFL, and before the game had even started we had seen loads of fireworks, a fly pass by jet fighters and a mass of celebrations... all getting the crowd into a mass frenzy ready for when the players came out. We both watch a lot of the NFL at home anyway, so really enjoyed actually being at a game, especially as the Eagles ran out 38-3 winners, their biggest ever opening day win. While at the game we also enjoyed the famous Philly
Cheesesteak... a steak sandwich with cheese in a hoagie roll. It sounds simple, but it is one of our favourite foods, and while others around America claim to make them, for some reason a Philly Cheesesteak just doesn't taste the same outside Philly!
We had to say a sad goodbye to our friends in Philly, we could easily have stayed a lot longer but still had a lot of travelling to do down the east coast. We drove down from Philly into Delaware, the first state in the Union and stayed in Dover, Kent County... no white cliffs though! We thought we'd come here to avoid some of the other big cities on the east coast, and found a great little colonial town with a picture perfect historic district. At times, it felt like we were wandering around a posh part of London, with small green squares surrounded by town houses, we even found a pub on the street corner too!
We only stayed in Dover for a night before heading onto what we hoped would be fantastic beaches further south down the coast. We had been recommended to stay in Virginia Beach, and as it was Simon's
birthday, we treated ourselves to a great hotel right on the beach and even had a room overlooking the ocean. It was great to relax here for a couple of days, spending some time enjoying the gorgeous long sandy beach, or sipping on a glass of wine on our balcony watching the waves roll in, not a bad way to spend a birthday!
We continued our journey south through Virginia and North Carolina, and stopped at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. We had seen Myrtle Beach a few times on TV, although most of them were on the Weather Channel when they were covering a hurricane about to hit the east coast! It had always looked a spectacular beach, a long sandy beach as far as the eye could see, and we had been keeping an eye on the Weather Channel to make sure no hurricanes were coming our way, so we thought we'd go and check it out. The sea was especially warm at Myrtle Beach, it felt like having a warm bath which we were both amazed about as it is the Atlantic after all. Myrtle Beach was pretty similar to Virginia Beach really, with a lovely
beach and a long boardwalk to walk along and loads of hotels and restaurants, but we weren't complaining as we again enjoyed relaxing on the beach or sitting in the hotel bar with a cold beer in hand.
We were now almost in holiday mode, so thought we better get back to a bit of travelling! We left South Carolina and headed to what would be our last state we would visit on our trip around America, the Sunshine state of Florida.
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