Philadelphia, PA

Twenty years ago Daisy decided to follow the career path of her husband and together with their two sons they left the familiar Flemish soil. The “Green, green grass of home” became that of Thames Valley England. Having given up a busy entrepreneurial career in banking and insurance, she enrolled in American History studies in Oxford. That decision emerged to be a visionary one because 4 years later the family crossed an even bigger ocean, “Sailing to Philadelphia”. 

It was the icing on the academic cake because Philadelphia rocked the cradle of the American Republic and is one of the most historic cities in the country. The City of Brotherly Love founded by the Quaker and often forgotten Founding Father William Penn, was the first operating Capitol of the US, is the first and only World Heritage city in the US with Independence Hall, is home to the oldest Opera building in the US, oldest public library and of course, the iconic Liberty Bell. 

The Van den Hooff-Mertens family settled close to the city in the green Penn Valley and with the two kids enrolled in the public school system became strongly woven into the fabric of their local community,  the American way of life and inevitably, like so many of the six million people living in the Greater Philadelphia region, learned to identify with the sports teams that define their beloved city.