World Tour - Pennsylvania

I finally got home this month.

I have not been in the U.S. of A. since 2009.

In June 2009, I had a little party with friends from various parts and times of my life -- Ginger and Elisa from high school; Jennifer from undergrad study abroad in London and her then-boyfriend; Marie from graduate school; and Tom from Hearst and his husband, Tim. It was a joyous time.

For Christmas 2009, Asmus and I got money to go to Russia. It was burning a hole in our pockets so we used it as soon as possible. We would spend our spring vacation in St. Petersburg and the autumn vacation in America. Unfortunately, my father-in-law got sick, so we stayed in Hamburg when we had planned to be sitting in front of the television watching Judge Mathis.

I got my chance to lap up lots of Judge Mathis, yards of Bob Evans breakfast sausage with sage, pounds of scrapple [For the uninitiated, scrapple is a southeastern Pennsylvania delicacy -- a gray loaf of various meats, spices and grains that is eaten for breakast.], miles of Italian sausage and lots of American television on a television and not on a computer monitor. It was a dream come true.

Plus, there was shopping. Lots of shopping. My fashion tastes are much different than what is sold in Germany. I love color. I like black pants with a cool top. In the summer, I like color everywhere. Here, the range of colors go from black to gray to navy blue. In addition, all my appendages are too big. I got some shoes.

I also hit the supermarket. I returned to Germany with cake mixes and the appropriate icing, grits, vanilla extract [It took me weeks to find vanilla extract in Germany. What I found was expensive. A small bottle costs 10 euros.], and salad dressing. The food purchases required the purchase of a suitcase and paying a extra bag fee. It was worth every penny.

I got to visit Marie and her family in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Along the way to visit Yuengling brewery, we ate at Boston Market. I haven't eaten at this fast food establishment since the 20th century. I don't know if they are all like this but this Boston Market near Dorney Park was marvelous. We ate off real plates and used real flatware. When we done with our roasted chicken, someone from the restaurant cleared the table.

Yuengling, America's oldest brewery, was not as streamlined as most of the breweries Asmus and I had visited in Europe. But, like Holsten, which was the least sophisticated tours of the European breweries, we got see the beer put in bottles. Bottling is the action-packed part of beer making. Even better, at Yuengling we got to walk through the work area during bottling. I could put my hand out and like Shirley Feeney, take a bottle off the line and take a sip. That was the cool part. Despite the constant giggling from our pubescent tour guide, Yuengling was pretty cool. The tour was free, you get two free samples of beer, and you visit the cave where they used to store the beer -- the same thing that was done at the Paulaner brewery in Munich.

It was cool to visit Marie, her husband and children. I hear Evan and Olivia in the background during telephone calls. It was nice to experience the entire package. Olivia was sitting on the floor and then she would get up to get one potato chip, sit down, eat the chip, and then repeat the process until the bowl was empty.

We went from Allentown to New York.