Brandywine and Dutch Country

Everyone was up pretty early the next day. The Boy and I snagged the small table on the balcony and ate breakfast together outside overlooking the forest.

After breakfast, we brought our plates back into the house. All of the women were sitting together in the kitchen. They started speaking to the Boy in Chinese. Then suddenly as the Boy left, all of the ladies looked over at me and started giggling.

What? What's going on? Why are they all laughing at me? His cousin couldn't hold it in, so she translated for me. They'd asked the Boy how breakfast on the balcony was. He replied that it couldn't be better with beautiful scenery all around and beauty at his side. Aww! Now I was embarrassed.

The first stop of the day was the Hagley Museum at the Brandywine River in Delaware. This was where the DuPont family from France first settled and started manufacturing gunpowder. We hopped on and off the trolley to see different tours of the premises and the DuPont family home. The entire estate was very scenic with lots of trees and the Brandywine River right next to us along the route. The home looked like all other historic homes that I had seen before in the East Coast and Europe. I thought that it was interesting that despite all of the land available to build their home, the DuPonts had to place their mansion next to their worksite where they were constanly testing and blowing things up. Because of this, various parts of the house were unexpectedly damaged or blown up and needed to be repaired. Apparently, it was tradition to have the home close to the factory in France so the DuPonts stuck to it.

Only the Boy, his mom, his cousin, her husband and I went to the Hagley museum, so afterwards we went back to the house to get the Boy's sister and meet up with his other cousins and their babies in Dutch Country, a last minute addition to our sightseeing itinerary. Originally, we were going to see the Hershey's Chocolate factory, but many of us really wanted to see the Amish instead. No one was particularly enthused about the Hershey's chocolate factory (except maybe the three year old, but she wasn't aware of our plans and really neither was I).

But before driving out to Dutch country, the Boy's cousins decided we should have a Philly cheesesteak for lunch. After all, that was Philadelphia was famous for. I could tell that his cousins didn't really eat out that much, because all of the places that they knew of to have Philly cheesesteaks on the menu either closed down or changed management. We drove around to several places looking for cheesesteaks, but couldn't find it anywhere. This was crazy! We were in Pennsylvania and couldn't find a Philly cheesesteak! Eventually, we found a place and ordered it to go. We ate in the car along the way to Dutch country.

Dutch country is in Lancaster County, PA. With some reckless driving, it took about an hour to get there. The cousin's husband was a bit of a speed demon. I was glad that we had extra napkins to wipe the cheese and grease off of our faces when one of us took a bite out of our sandwhich while the car hit some turbulence in the road.

As we got close to Dutch country, I saw people dressed in "Little House on the Prarie" type clothes riding a horse and buggy. They shared the same roads as cars did and paid attention to the same traffic signals as everybody else. There was quite a bit of automobile traffic along the road, so it was really weird seeing the Amish with their horse and buggy drive by a shopping plaza with a Target and Starbucks.

Initially, we met up at an Amish store in Intercourse, PA. I had no idea what city we were in, so I was a bit confused as to why an Amish store was selling t-shirts that said, "I [Heart] Intercourse." Then, the Boy's cousin and sister announced that they wanted to find the official "Welcome to Intercourse" sign and take pictures next to it. Ahh, now it was all making sense.

We drove around for a bit and for some reason ended up in the parking lot of the Amish horse and carriage driving school. It was closed because it was Sunday, but as the relatives stood in the parking lot trying to coordinate where to go, I saw a huge mess of Amish school kids (pre-teen and teenaged) playing across the street. The boys (dress in Amish clothes) were playing basketball, and the girls were hovering shyly along the sidelines probably gossiping about the boys. I don't know why this was, but I thought it was interesting that the girls that hung out in the same group all wore the same colored dresses. Four girls in purple colored dresses were gossiping amongst eachother, while the green dress girls were wandering around as were the blue dress girls. I guess peer pressure and cliques exists no matter what culture you're in.

Trying to find the official "Welcome to Intercourse" sign was like a treasure hunt. We ran across many signs similar to it, but nothing official. Eventually, we found it. Every couple posed for a picture next to the sign. We looked like such crazy tourists. When it was the couple with the two babies' turn, their three year old ran up and insisted on being in the picture. I thought that was hilarious.

Now that the relatives had gotten the souvenir picture that they were looking for, it was time to head home.