On Saturday, we took a two-hour drive to Pennsylvania to visit the Amish country surrounding Lancaster. It was a very interesting drive and the countryside was quite beautiful. Having only set foot in Amish country once during my academy's years, I wasn't sure what to expect. Well, let me clarify that....I did have a mental picture of what it was like and boy was I wrong! I imagined crossing an imaginery line and entering 'the simple life'. Instead, what we saw was a lot of commercialized businesses capitalizing from the Amish lifestyle. That was surely disappointing. The few places that we stopped at were shops full of trinkets and t-shirts..... a far cry from the homemade goods and crafts we expected to find. Don't get me wrong, there were these things but the industrialized goods were in far greater numbers. As we drove out into the country, we were surprised to find that one neighbor had a horse and buggy in the driveway and the next neighbor had a big truck (literally, we saw lots of semi's parked in the backs of houses--obviously OTR truckers). Another surprise was the style of homes that belonged to the horse and buggy driveways. Many of them were beautiful, modern and enormous. I'd have to say that visiting the Amish country actually created more questions than answers about the mysterious lifestyle of the Amish people. Nonetheless, it was a fascinating exposure to ways so different than our own.
Like I said, I didn't feel like I really learned a lot about the Amish and their ways, so I just had to buy this book (giving in to the commercialization, yes, I know). It's filled with beautiful photos (another justification, hee hee). Sven and I went home that evening with lots on our minds as we pulled into our over-populated, over-techno'ed, over-everything neighborhood. It really is food for thought...... (and speaking of food, mom....NO NOODLES....boy were we disappointed!).
