Day 2 - Meeting the Amish Culture

J's family stayed at a guest house located in the heart of Amish Country.  With an Amish farm next door, an Amish market just down the street, and the need to pass multiple horse and buggies each time they ventured out to explore the roads of Lancaster County, they had many opportunities to interact with the local culture.

Thursday, May 8 - For Day 2 of our wedding week, my dad had organized lunch for J's family at an Amish family's house.  It was quite a feast and our Dutch family was introduced to an array of homemade, regional culinary delights, including Chow Chow, Applesauce, home-grown sweet-corn, and Shoefly Pie.  The Amish woman who prepared our meal was very welcoming, and even invited us to go to the barn to meet their week-old miniature horse foal. 

 

After our feast, we went to James Street Mennonite Church to set up and decorate the reception dinner hall.  It was a lot of work and a real example of the old saying "Many hands make light work".  Thank you to all of who helped with one of our biggest last minute wedding details!  The outcome was beautiful :)

Heat Wave

The East Coast of the USA is in the midst of a sweltering heat wave. Boston, as much as I love this city, sounds very unpleasant right now.  I can easily recall those days of trying to muster up enough energy in my very hot apartment to walk outdoors and face the seemingly endless and miserably hot walk to the subway station...with the heat waves visibly rising from the road surface.  Pennsylvania is no better during a heat wave.  Humidity is a very ugly thing indeed! 

Having always lived on the East Coast, my view of hot weather has always been skewed by the fact that it is always accompanied by humidity.  I really, really dislike hot weather.  All members of the Nolt side of my family will agree, our genes just do not combine well with hot and humid weather! 

But life is a funny thing.  I am now living in the Middle East...certainly not an intuitive place to call home for a person who so strongly dislikes sweating and feeling hot.  I now live just a short drive away from the Judean Desert, where there is scorching heat, an unforgiving sun, and very little life to be seen.  

However, despite this proximity to the desert, I am sitting here in Jerusalem enjoying far more pleasant weather than currently anyone on the East Cost.   And believe it or not, the pleasant weather in Jerusalem is the norm!  I am, for the first time, living in a hot climate that is not cursed with humidity.  Because of Jerusalem's high altitude, the weather is seldom humid during the summer months.  Please understand, the heat is still VERY intense...far more intense than I have ever experienced.  Walking any distance in the middle of a summer afternoon can make you feel utterly exhausted within minutes.  But I am still amazed at how quickly relief can be found!  Just step into the shade...and you feel instantly cool.  Even on the hottest afternoon, it is pleasant to sit outside under a tree.  On most days, there is a very cool breeze when the sun goes down.  More often than not, I need to take a light jacket or sweater with me when going out for the evening. 

There are many things I will miss about the East Cost...including lush green grass, dense forests, colorful fall foliage, etc.  However, I will not miss those summer heat waves! 

Day 1 - Our Parents Meet

Wednesday, May 7 -All of J's family arrived in the Lancaster area and introductions between our families needed to be made!  It's rather interesting how a marriage so often brings together people who otherwise would never meet in this great big world.  And all of this simply because a man and woman have met...fallen in love...and decided to get married. 

Since we both come from fairly large families with lots of small children, we decided it might be most relaxed for our parents to first meet each other without all the kids.  J's parents deserve an award for their energy that first evening.  After a delayed international arrival at Philly airport, they had only 45 minutes to relax at their guest house before heading to my parents house for dinner in the evening.  My mom made a delicious meal that was the first introduction of J's family to the delights of PA Dutch cooking.  The meal ended with my favorite dessert...Vanilla Pie.  Vanilla Pie is the lesser-known 'cousin' of Shoofly Pie  -- probably the most well-known PA Dutch food item outside of Lancaster County.  In my humble opinion, Vanilla Pie is the far superior pie!

Wedding Week Photos...at last!

I am finally posting some photos from all the various events we held around the time of our wedding.  We didn't initially plan to have a 5-day wedding celebration...but that is exactly what it turned out to be!  You may think that sounds tiring, but in fact, J and I both felt invigorated by the opportunity to spend so much time with our immediate families and close friends.  It was great to relax and enjoy all the fun after many months of planning. 

We had briefly discussed the pros/cons of holding a destination wedding in Jerusalem and to include a tour of the Holy Land.  One of the pros was the fact that guests who would attend would really bond from spending so much time together.  We liked the idea that our wedding guests would not only celebrate our marriage, but also form friendships and real camaraderie among each other. 

At the end of our 5-day wedding in Pennsylvania, that is exactly what had happened among our family and closest friends!  We were happy to see that we had managed to create a destination wedding feel right in Lancaster County. 

Enjoy the photos and posts about our wedding during the coming weeks!   

A Galilean Retreat

A wedding gift from J's Jerusalem colleagues, we spent last weekend at an inn in Rosh Pina, a small village about 10 km north of the Sea of Galilee.  Rosh Pina is the site of one of the oldest Zionist settlements in Israel and is now a popular vacation spot for many Israelis. 

We had very private accommodations with a lovely balcony overlooking the Galilee hills.  We enjoyed eating our Israeli breakfast on the patio each morning. 

A wall of windows in our suite invited the beautiful outdoors inside. 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful flowers we discovered in a Galilean field.

 

 

 

The view from the hilltop peak of Rosh Pina overlooking the Hula Valley in the Galilee.  On a clear day, Mount Hermon would be visible in the distance.  

Isn't It Beautiful?!?

Goodbye...

 

Hello...

And a picture to prove it really works....

With the recent purchase of a real stove, I feel as if a whole new world of culinary delights is now available to me and Jonathan! 

May I always appreciate the luxury of 4 burners and a real oven :)

PS - the Hebrew character magnets on the refrigerator is my first step to reaching fluency in the language.  I have made little progress in my education...as the lack of "order" to the characters reveal. 

A Taste of Home

Israelis are in love with mint - "nana" in Hebrew.  When you order tea at a restaurant, 95% of the time the waitress assumes you mean black tea with a sprig of "nana".  In grocery stores, the mint section in the produce aisle is as big as the lettuce section in the United States.  You can find mint ice drinks (similar to TH Slushies) on menus.  Mint is used as garnish.  To sum it up, Israel is a haven for mint lovers.

Despite this cultural appreciation for mint, I have not yet found the Lancaster County version of mint tea for sale.   

Growing up Mennonite in Lancaster County, Meadow Tea was a favorite summertime beverage.  The name originally came from going out to the farm meadow to find a patch of mint in order to make this refreshing drink.  Now, most people in the area have a patch of mint growing in their flowerbed or garden..and the meadow tea tradition lives on.

I made my first batch of meadow tea this afternoon! The world really isn't that big.  To be in Israel drinking a local drink of Lancaster County...it felt very nice indeed.  The fact that you can make meadow tea 365 days a year is a real bonus for life in Israel. :)