Day 7 - Part 1
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2008
1
15
30
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Today's high was 65F and the low is 40F and air was cold and breeze. It smelt like cows outside.
Our first stop was the Amish Experience. We explored an Amish house. Our guide explained about clothing, toys, and the rooms. Church services were in the house including funerals and weddings.
The kitchen was interesting. The refrigerator is powered by propane as well as the stove. The most important part is the kitchen table because it was used for the family to sit together for meals, talking, playing games and toys.
The most interesting part of the house was living room because there were a lot of wooden mazes with marbles.
We visited a school which was part of the house but only for this tour. Usually the school is a different one-room structure. The school had grades 1-8 all in the same class. Amish schools only go up to 8th grade.
We saw the school's class schedule, Roman numeral chart, Alphabet chart in German and English, and the desk. The chair was connected to the front of the desk. We took two typical Amish challenges. The first was a spelling challenge. It was not a regular spelling game. The words were spelled backwards out loud and we had to give the word. The BOYS WON in a landslide.
The second challenge was in arithmetic. You had to solve the question in your head and give the answer, for example 4 x 4 - 5 + 12. Again it was a BOYS Rout of the girls ... at least by Mr. Nish's scoring.
We had a bus tour of Amish country with our guide. We learned how to identify an Amish farm as oppose to an English farm because an Amish farm had carriages, no cars, place to tie up horse, a large propane tank and no wire going to the house except if they had a telephone.
The last part was the movie called Jacob's Choice that had to do with teenager's choice to stay in his Amish family or to be in the modern world. We won't give away the ending but Mr. Nish learned that if they choose to be in the modern world, they are not shunned by the Amish community. About 95% of the teens remain Amish.
Lunch was a great buffet. Also a gift shop was involved but that's no surprise. After lunch students were prancing around in a farmer's field. Some of us found quartz.
Continued ...
