Are you Californian?

I soak up accents like a sponge, I was the only girl at school who could 'do' a Geordie accent due to spending one week with some geordies at a horse camp. So travelling around must be playing havoc with my accent, even though I am unaware of the changes. Today i have been accused of being Californian, Australian, Scottish (by an American who was particularly proud at not calling a Scot English, I let him think he was right!), Texan and most surprisingly someone who was convinced that my accent sounded like I'd lived in South America for a couple of years! Very very confusing.

I arrived in the old town of my namesake town Philadelphia yesterday evening, to be greeted by a rather ominous looking 28 person dorm room - I'm sure even boarding school students don't have 28 bed dorms! in a hostel decorated entirely in a hideous orange and green colour combination... not a good start. However after my initial trepidation, Philly has proved really interesting. As one of the oldest towns in American, the home of the Declaration of Independence, and the Liberty bell I've been stocking up on my American history (history older than 1800!) and getting my fix of really cute rows of houses with beautiful coloured shutters. I also ran up the famous Rocky steps at the museum of art, although I have to admit I've never seen Rocky and so initially had no idea why all these people were running up the steps to the art museum...

Aside from the history though there is a really bustling art scene and i spent most of yesterday afternoon wandering round teh Magic Gardens on South Street. this project was started in the 60's when the town council was threatening to knock the whole area down. A group of artists started to cover a whole block of houses with mosaic tiles. the area survived and today there are three houses covered inside and out with a variety of mosaics made from mirrors, tiles, bicycle wheels, broken plates, wine bottles - you name it and these artists have put it into a mosaic. the whole effect is amazing. Its so colourful, bright and yet strangely disorientating. The area surrounding the houses has become a mecca for local art galleries and street artists. Some of the work for sale in teh streets was amazing (and incredibly cheap) I had to restrain myself from buying a 3ft x 2ft canvas of London for $60 (it was really beautiful I'm now kinda regretting not buying it) with the reasoning how was I going to get it home! (I didn't reject the piece without first taking it to the UPS shop and asking how much it would be to ship to England, needless to say the cost was prohibitive for a $60 piece of art work.

As well as lost of history the sounds of the pier last night rocked to a free concert of jazz music, which I attended with some of the girls from the giant hostel room - I love cities that promote free music concerts, its such a good way of getting different types of music to those who can't afford to see it otherwise, plus concerts add a whole new element to teh music. Tonight I'm going to another concert R&B this time, followed by fireworks. Should be fun :)