Deepest Pennsylvania

Hello again!

Well, I've arrived, and found internet access!

It was a very easy trip - when I checked in at the airport, they asigned me the whole back row of seats on one side, as the flight wsan't very full, so I had a lovely comfy trip stretched across three seats, my nicest transatlantic trip ever!

I was met at the airport by my lift to the conference in Pennsylvania, who is a lovely woman called Debbi, and we hit it off straight away, which is ust as well when you've got at least 9 hours to spend in the car together!

The plan was to drive about halfway there, then spend the night in B+B, which we duly did, at

http://www.paulyns.com/home.html which was an extremely restful stop. Our hosts were from the Mennonite religion, and were models of hospitality! Breakfast was arranged at a time when all the guests that were staying could come and sit at one big table and eat together, which I thought was a really nice touch, and reminded me a bit of meals at Iona. We had quite some grace at the beginning of the meal too - I felt very much prayed for by the time we got to eat! It was a three course breakfast too - I think I'm going to need to work on my stomach capacity, as I'm not used to all this food yet... certainly sets you up for the day though.

The following morning we set off on our way, via an enormous Wal-Mart, which was one of these supermarkets you hear about that actually sells guns and ammunition in it - scary.

er... 6 loo rolls and a round of ammunition please?? Hmmm....

and off we drove... and I've never seen so many trees! The landscape mostly consisted of sizeable, rolling hills, absolutely covered with trees - for most of the drive, hours at a stretch. Like a big green, scratchy lumpy duvet. I suppose that's what the British landscape would have looked like before our forebears came along and used up all the wood!

Finnaly , we drew up at the conference centre, which is in a small rural town, New Wilmington. We also happen to be in the heart of Amish country , which is fascinating:

http://www.800padutch.com/amish.shtml

I've already seen a few horses and carts being driven along the road, and people working on their farms - it's like being dropped into another century - I'd love to be able to chat to someone and find out more about them. There's a couple of Amish craft shops in town which I'd like to check out - remembereing however that I'm at the start of my trip and will have to carry any purchases with me for a month!!

ah well...

more soon!