Day 3 - Amish Paradise

That's right Amish Country. We had no intention in visiting this strange and backwards world until Molly mentioned it the day before.

In the morning I got up a little earlier than Emma and Andy because I asked Molly if she could walk me around Villnova a bit. I guess I have been curious to see this school every since I started becoming indirectly connected with it due to Merrimack being a sister school of Villanova. In fact, Villanova and Merrimack are the only two colleges in the country with Augustinian backgrounds. So Molly was nice enough to wake up early along with me and show

me around before she had to go off to babysit.

On the right is me in front of their main church on campus. As you can see it looks beautiful. For anyone who can't tell, I'm wearing a Merrimack t-shirt. While I was taking pictures, I kept the shirt visible so the student's didn't think I was senior in high school bringing pack pictures from my visit to a perspective school. I did find it interesting that Villanova's science building is also named Mendel, that Austin Hall also had the admissions offices in it, and that there was also a Cascia Hall on campus!

Once back at Molly's apartment, Emma, Andy and I packed up our stuff. Molly had to go and babysit but she left us there to make sure we had everything we needed. She didn't want us to feel rushed.

It only took about an hour to get to get to Amish Country. We had a list that Molly helped us compile with different things to do in the area that she recommended. Molly was raving about taking a horse and buggy tour so we just had to do one. We pulled into Aaron and Jessica's Buggy Rides and took the 30 minute 'cookie tour'. Our trusty tour guide Tom and his faithful steed Bonnie showed us around the area. Tom was actually a Mennonite but from what we learned, both Mennonites and the Amish are pretty similar with their views and ways of life.

The tour got off to a great start, but not before Bonnie could do her best to personally christen pavement that we rode on. Thanks to Tom, we learned a ton of information on the Amish culture. Although I was a bit skeptical on what it takes to be either an Amish or a Mennonite these days. We all know that they can't use electricity, but apparently they can use solar power energy, propane gas, and wind power air pressure. Tom's cell phone even rang during the tour.

That's our view from the buggy on the tour.

After the tour we went to the Lancaster Brewing Company. There we tried the 'beer sampler' which was 15 five ounce local beers. We even got to try an Amish beer, which wasn't as bad a we thought it would be.

We are currently in Baltimore now. Andy's sister, Julie, lives here with her husband and the apartment is very nice. It's been a long two days of constant traveling and prepping for the next days that I believe it's finally catching up with us. So tonight we sat around and watched TV and did some reading.

Tomorrow is another long day! But it'll be a great one!

Aramis

Posted in: Timmy