Pennsylvania

I sure love Pennsylvania! I'm back in Philly now and back to school. I'm glad to be back but I am going to miss Williamsport too! I learned a lot there, one thing is that there is Philadelphia and then there is Pennsylvania and they are not really the same at all. Philadelphia is so big and diverse it really has a culture all it's own. I really like Philadelphia but I love Pennsylvania! PA is so pretty and the people are great. It has a down home colonial feel to it and the people are very proud of that! I got to experience a couple of their traditions which was really cool. For example every year on New Years Day it's good luck to eat Pork and Sauerkraut with mashed potatoes.

A lady from my ward invited me over for dinner so that I could experience this Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. The only other time that I have had sauerkraut it was straight from the jar and it was really bitter, but this is cooked all day in a crock-pot with the pork. It still has a little bitterness to it but I really liked it!
Another traditional Pennsylvania Dutch meal is Chicken and Waffles. Weird right? But I really liked that too! My clinical instructor and his wife invited me to a restaurant called Country Cupboard to have it.

This isnt exactly what mine looked like, there was a lot more chicken and less gravy and the waffles looked much more appealing than these do.  Sorry I didn't take a picture! In the south they have chicken and waffles but they usually make it with fried chicken. The PA Dutch make it with chicken and gravy.  It was a strange combination, the waffles were a little sweet, the chicken was savory and good...mmm.... love it!

Pennsylvania is so pretty, especially in the fall! One weekend I went hiking to a place called the PA Grand Canyon.  It wasn't exactly a canyon by western standards, it was two big hills with a river running between them, but it was still beautiful. There are so many trees here that in the fall the hills are covered with green, orange, red, and yellow. It was cloudy on the day I took these pictures so the colors aren't as brilliant as they are in real life!

 Something else that defines PA Dutch or Amish country is covered bridges like these! This is just a foot bridge in a local park but they are all over, I love them!

Now that we are back in school we are deciding where we will be going for our 6 month internship that starts in May.  I was hoping to be able to go somewhere new for it, maybe Alaska or somewhere in the south, but we just got the final list of sites and it looks like I'll probably be staying in Philly for the internship. Bother. Oh well, what can you do? I like Philly and I have good friends here. We'll just have to see where the next step will be!