Hi Guys!

Camp has finally come to an end and the real holiday is just beginning!! Our final week at camp was definintely the most enojyable with plenty of fun and tears shed by all, it's impossible not to become emotional with so many goodbyes. The kids went home on Wed of wk8, with thurs, fri and sat being time for counsellors to remain at camp and relax a little before heading off home or onto further travels. Most of the international staff headed off to Philadelphia on saturday (I think there were 18 of us in all!) to stay together.

Jaymes, Matty and I spent our first 2 days in Philly checking out our transport options for the remainder in the trip with our plan initially to buy a car, but that soon changed after reading of the paperwork and difficulty in getting insurance as we are non-residents.

We took in the main sights of philly - the Liberty Bell and Independence area (where the declaration of independence took place) as well as the city hall, Love statue, Philly museum of Art (Rocky steps) and last night we went to watch a Phillies Baseball game which was brilliant. The phillies got up over the Washington Nationals in the final two innnings to win!! great game and great atmosphere up in the rafters!

Yesterday was our day to pick up our new wheels for traversing the country...after the buying options fell through we looked into renting (including visiting the dodgiest car rental place in the philly ghetto!) and we've rented a Ford Explorer SUV until the end of October with the plan to drop it off in L.A

We've (jaymes, Matty and I) been really lucky the pat two nights as we've been able to stay with one of the Camp Staff members who lives 30mins from the Philly CBD! Jodi and her husband have been incredibly generous, picking us up and taking us to the shops, feeding us, letting us use the internet and do our laundry...it's made things SO much easier. Even just finiding internet proved a difficult task when we were staying in the motel and not having transport, especially when trying to look for a car!

So the plan today is to jump in our new ride and head to our apartment in NYC, we're right in the middle of Manhattan, and hopefully we'll make it without too much hassle after we bought a GPS system yesterday. The next 2 weeks will probably involve NYC, Boston/Cape Cod area and maybe a College football game at Penn State University...we'll see.

Keep in touch guys, missing you all!

-mike