Sophie's email

hi!! I just wanted to let you know that - against all expectations -I'm still alive. Thanks so much for being with me Sunday night, itreally meant a lot to me. I've carried the jeans and the bag to everyplace I went so far. The first stop was Lancaster county. We ended upon a very typical non-Amish farm bed&breakfast. The people werefreakishly nice, the food awesome (and plenty), the view beautiful,and THEY HAD A NEWBORN KITTEN!!!! Plus a cute puppy. On the secondnight, I was watching the sunset on a field, the kitten came to playwith me and then curled up in my lap to sleep. For a very long time. Avery VERY long time. So I didn't get to bed until midnight. But it wasextremely adorable. It is very fascinating to see how the Amishpeople live harmonically alongside 21st century American society. Theyliterally work together with their non-Amish neighbors: our maid andwaitress were both Amish and many amish hire outsiders for "sinful"works like driving a truck. They are really friendly and open andthey all seem like very happy people, compared with their"mainstream-Christian" neighbors. Some offer to have visitors come fordinner,and we tried to do that - it turned out they only do it onThursdays and Fridays- so that way we got to talk to a couple. ISpoke german with an Amish girl! It was slightly weird, sincw theyspeak a southern sialwct that has been handed down for centuries, butwe were able to understand each other. Amish teenagers are allowed alot more freedoms than adults, like driving cars and stuff so thatthey can decide whether or not they want to get baptized and join theAmish community. Every 10th teenager leaves and that seems to beperfectly ok with everybody, which I think is one of the coolestthings about the Amish. So I kept looking for an Amish guy drivingaround in his, but I couldn't find one. Yesterday we went toHartford ( gilmore girls!! ) and visited the mark twain house, whichwas really fun . Then we went to concord, Massachusetts, where we areright now. It's so pretty! And so many amazing people lived here! Iwent to the northe bridge today, where the first shot of therevolution was fired, the one that was " heard around the world", andbefriended some military girl. Right next to that, and I mean RIGHTnext to that is the emerson house where nathaniel Hawthorne & co liveda while. The only other family in our tour group was german ( andincluded two teenage boys. Leave it to me to find the probably onlyguys of my age and nationality in the whole state). The tour wasabsolutely amazing and I ended up discussing with the tour guideHawthorne's hotness and thoreau's adorable-ness ( how can you not lovea man whose last words were "moose" and "Indian"?). Tomorrow we aregonna go to the "sleepy hollow cemetery" which I wanted tovisit evenbefore I knew that half of America's famous writers are buried there,just cause I'm obsessed with cemeteries. And Washington irving. Andjohnny depp. Plus Im really excited to see walden pond tomorrow!!!So yea, thats pretty much what I've done so far. Toldya i wouldspam you. I have ( sporadic) access to internet, by the way - incase u haven't noticed. Lots of love from Concord, sophie