Past couple of weeks myself and Karthik are so busy... Went to many shops in search of furniture and some kutti, kutti things for our home. Spent many nights in booking the flight tickets.
Do you like to know the reason, why ?
Its because my in-laws are in Chicago. After a great compulsion from our end, they accepted to come, that too on a condition. Only in summer as you all know winter is so bad here, specially in Chicago. They safely arrived day before yesterday and still recovering from jet lag :))
OK, let we go back to our trip. After having a very good time in Hershey's we went to a Hotel in Lancaster, PA. Its a pathetic hotel we ever stayed. Poor thing is its run by our people. No words to explain about that hotel. Nothing was good... stained chairs, bed with full of dust, a small frozen fridge, I am not joking the whole fridge was frozen and looked so fishy. Fact is we payed twice the normal amount for that room. It was a very bad experience in the whole trip. Since there is no other go we stayed there without touching anything.
Next day morning we rushed out from there and enjoyed a beautiful drive, it was very pleasant. It made us to forget about the nightmare at the hotel. On our way to Philadelphia we went to Dutch farmland, Lancaster Amish county.
The farmlands of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country are among the most productive in the nation. But many of the farmers here are different from most Americans; different by choice. These people trace their heritage back hundreds of years, and yet, despite all the time that has passed and the many changes that have taken place in society, they still live and work much as their forefathers did. Their families and their farms are their top priorities, second only to God.
Our Amish neighbors have been employing horse-drawn power since the days when horsepower had a whole different meaning! In comparison to our fast-paced society, the simpler, family-centered. The Amish have long preferred farming as a way of life. They feel their lifestyle and their families can best be maintained in a rural environment.While they do not permit the use of tractors in their fields, these old order Amish groups do use modern farm equipment pulled by teams of horses or mules.
The Amish are generally private people and often find all the attention and curiosity about their lifestyle disturbing. They believe that the taking of photographs where someone is recognizable is forbidden by the Biblical prohibition against making any 'graven image'. (From amish website)The whole county was looking green, full farmland. If we cross a farm, atleast we can see minimum 15 horses, herd of grazing cows, 10 sheep, some cock and hens in there backyard of a small house. And the house will be midst of a big land.
Amish people use Buggies, a cart driven by a Horse to travel. We saw so many buggies going on the road. Without knowing our self we respected them and didn't took any pictures.
We pulled our car near a stream and had our brunch under a big tree. Felt as if we were in Tanjore farm field. The whole area was calm, clean, green. Just fantastic.
After few hours journey we reached Philadelphia. Went to all historic places like Declaration of Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin's house, first Congress Hall, Liberty bell and remembered 'National Treasure' movie. Crossed the Franklin bridge that links Pennsylvania with New Jersey. The highlight was the ride around town in a horse drawn carriage under the hot sun.
Philadelphia, very small town. Since it was a first long weekend the whole place flooded with many people from different countries. Since we could not stand the heat we started early and went to a place called 'Valley Forge' a forest preserve park. This is the same place where George Washington stayed along with his army in Winter during the Revolutionary War period.
Had our lunch cum dinner in the forest, relaxed ourself for some minutes in the nice breezy forest and started our drive back.
Successfully 2 days ran off...
