Friday, September 11, 2009

Oh...Say can You See...

Oh Fort McHenry! Who knows what happened at Fort McHenry? Maybe this picture below will give you some clues...

Times up! Pencils down. Fort McHenry, located in Maryland was the sight were Francis Scott Key penned the words that would become our national anthem. We happened to go to Fort McHenry on the one day a year that admission was free!! Score.
After seeing that famous star spangled banner in the American History Museum, it was very gratifying to come full circle with the trip to Fort McHenry.
O'er the ramparts we watched....

I am watching o'er some ramparts.
And I just want to say that after getting into an argument with Andrew over what "ramparts" are I emerged victorious! Ha ha! I would like to thank google, wikipedia and the iphone for backing me up. Of course as a history major I would know what ramparts are.... to be honest I thought everyone did....I am not sure why Andrew didn't....
Needless to say I do find the history behind the Star Spangled Banner to be very interesting, and the Fort did a great job bringing that history to life. That's coming from a girl who doesn't even like American history, so that's saying a lot.
Props to Andrew for taking some really great pics.

We heart Pa

Hey, remember back in July when we lived in DC? It seems like such a long time ago. Whilst there we often took day trips to Pennsylvania. We decided to brush up on our civil war history and head out to Gettysburg. Actually I didn't really need to brush up since I am now officially a history major and had just taken and passed, American history from 1870. Oh no wait, that wouldn't have covered the civil war. Lucky however I had also just taken American History to 1870...so that pretty much covered all the civil war bases. Needless to say I totally know way more than Andrew.
So here we have a fence, and a road.
this is not necessarily an important fence or road, but
I really enjoy old fences. So there you go.
This is a picture of the valley of death, and in the left hand corner to can see the rocks of what is awesomely referred to as the Devil's casket. Okay, just kidding I made that up. But those rocks were called the devil's something....cauldron perhaps? Or the Devil's labyrinth. I can't remember but any of those names would give you the general idea. So when you go to Gettysburg, this is what you do. Drive to the visitor's center. Purchase a CD tour at the museum store. Or you can pay extra to purchase an actually civil war soldier (tour guide) to ride around in your car with you. You can guess which one we did.
Here we have a reinactor now. He looks like he is having great time. And I was very appreciative of this display of living history.
More living history. Me being dead on a stone wall where other civil war soldiers could have possibly fallen. Inappropriate? Probably. But the damage has already been done, so I am putting the damming photo on our blog. Plus it was really good practice for when I graduate with a history degree and have to find a job being a historical actress myself. So technically it was kinda like...homework.

Before we move on I just want to point out that any lack of knowledge of American history on my part is not a direct reflection on the quality of education I am receiving. It is more of a reflection on the fact that I don't really like American history, and therefore choose not to waste my precious brain space remembering it. I didn't say I don't like America, I just said I don't care about its history. It's personal preference.

On to something that I do like; Amish people.
We will call this little guy Moses Thomas Ezekiel.
On another weekend we took a day trip to one of the greatest places in America:
Intercourse, Pennsylvania.
Being the mature adults that Andrew and I are, there were, of course, no inappropriate jokes whatsoever. And if you believe that then you will probably also believe that there are actually giant living gingerbread men running around Lancaster county.

Oh wait! There are!
Andrew thought this guy was hilarious...I am not sure what he has to do with the peaceful loving people of the Amish. I mostly thought he was a little creepy. And thanks Andrew for making me take a picture with him.

So if you are hanging out in Intercourse, and you get tired of eating homemade jam and pretzels, and staring at the buggies when they come into town. There is something to remind you that there are still people in the world who believe in violence and having lots of weapons.
That's right! There in downtown Intercourse, is the:
American Military Edge Weaponry Museum.
Of course we had to check it out.
We support the small museum.
So basically there were lots of knives.
Edged weapons.

Overall we love Pennsylvania. But as Andrew said many times last times last night, he hates the Steelers. I am not exactly sure why he hates the blue-collar workers that helped build the nation. Maybe he feels the same why I do about American history.....