If I were a journalist

Monday marked the start of my week away from the farm - away from working and my final week in Maryland. The ever fabulous Madison plotted a week full of fun for us to pursue on a mini road trip to 4 states. Meaning by the end of today I will have visited 20% of the United States!

Our first stop was Lancaster, to see the Amish. We were going to attempt to get some fresh Amish produce though failed, instead we drove round all sorts of random lanes, looking out for Amish people and Amish farms. Whilst Madison pondered aloud different questions about the Amish religion that neither of us could answer.

That evening we stayed with Madison’s lovely grandparents who were very excited to have someone foreign staying. We ate pizza and watched For Richer or Poorer - a story of a couple who end up pretending to be Amish to avoid the cops. Just to top off our Amish inspired day!

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn - for once I am not even joking! Our alarms were set for 5:30am. We had a plesant drive to Lewes, a few hours away, with the iPod blasting and arrived at the ferry with perfect time.

We sat on the poop deck for a while, watching the view, before it got too cold. Instead we went inside to eat soft pretzels.

Wearing my new Sherlock Holmes coat for $50 from Forever21.

We arrived in Cape May at 10:30am and had a fun old time trying to figure out how to get into the downtown area. From May to September they run a shuttle bus - we figured we could just walk instead, since it’s such a touristy area. I asked the nice lady at the gift shop who gave me directions and told me it would only take 10 minutes.

After an hour of wandering around (albeit down pretty roads called “Beach Drive”) we realised that the directions I had been given were in fact for driving and it was impossible to walk to Cape May given the lack of pavement (or should I say “sidewalk”).

Thanks to Madison’s phone we Googled for a taxi number, got one to pick us up and finally we made it into the downtown! We had a wander around all the cute shops and I found an adorable bracelet for $20.

We then had lunch at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House which was ridiculously cheap with insanely large portions. Madison ordered strawberry filled pancakes and I had a caesar salad.

Before long it was time to head back to the ferry which got us back to Lewes at nearly 4PM. We then drove the wrong way for a while, as the sat nav was playing up but eventually found our way and drove back to Madison’s grandparents where we stayed another night. Though not before having a delicious dinner with the family.

I also got the novelty of trying Canadian Goose! Madison’s cousin had shot it that afternoon. It was pretty tasty. Unlike the goose eaten in the UK, that’s a white meat, this is dark meat. Quite a gamey flavour and they warned it was a tad tough because of it’s “wild” nature!

We then watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall which was surprisingly good and though Russell Brand didn’t have to do much acting in the part, he was amusing and the movie was generally very appropriate given the British/American dialogue and how they mock the English accent in the movie. Very funny for all concerned!

Wednesday we drove back to the farm, I had a potter around, took a nap and then helped Nora & Martha arrange some furniture for our party on Friday. We now have an air hockey table, ping pong table and pool table all accessible and useable! Can’t wait to have a houseful to try it all out.