Strange thing about Carlisle is that even thought it's in PA, which is nominally in the North, there's just enough twinge of South here that you can find Waffle House (yeah!) and Rebel Flags (boo). Which adds to it's kind of funky flavor, I guess. Spent the day in Harrisburg, which, again is kind of cute and kind of funky, but also kind of small and kind of pointless. It is the capitol of PA, but as I walked around and people watched, I kept on wondering what the fuck they were doing there. I mean, it's Harrisburg. You're in the middle of PA. You're live in the middle of nowhere. You could go live in New York, or you could go live in San Francisco, or hell, even Philly, but Harrisburg? Why? Don't you people know what's out there in this great big, beautiful country?

The only thing we did in Harrisburg was to go the Science Museum and see an Imax movie (there everywhere now, I guess). When we got there, I saw a bunch of Mennonites walking around. That's another weird things about PA, that despite it being kind of minor state, it's got a lot of strange religions running around. You got the Quakers (who aren't that strange and kind of cool), the Amish, the Mennonites, as well as a few others. Why here, I'm not sure, but I think it's because of the Germanic/Dutch ancestory of the original settlers and because the state was founded by William Penn, a Quaker who wanted to create a place where every religion could buy a coke and live in peace and harmony. Bully for William Penn.

Anyways, it kind of freaked me out, seeing this group of people still clad in 19th Century garb running around a science exhibit. Besides the obvious irony of it (don't know if Mennonites are quite with it in an ironic sense), it was just kind of weird seeing them. It's one of those SF type things, I guess. I'm used to seeing Sikhs in Turbans and Moslem girls in head girl. I'm used to Krishnah's and guys in black wearing Satanic garb and wicca's wearing crystal and running naked in the woods. Not to mention tons of Buddhists, all with the last name of Rosenberg or Katz or Rosen.

But not Mennonites.