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Published: December 30th 2007
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On the way
Neal, his parents, and I decided to drive up to Winston-Salem for a few days to meet up with his Aunt Jean and Uncle Lee, who have been living in Mexico for a year, and are now planning on moving to Argentina. We decided to try some different things, and the trip turned out to be quite an experience! Despite the fact that the road signs were misleading and that there was no lighting, we found the people to be very pleasant, the food to be good, and the sites to be wonderful!
On the way up, we stopped at the racetrack/football field of the local University. The men are really into racing, so we looked around. Apparently someone has been having A LOT of fun, as there were donuts all over the completely flat track! It was really cold and we slipped into a maintainance entrance, as I am not sure it was really open. But some security people saw us and must have figured we were just tourists (which we were!) and didn't yell or anything.
Old Salem
I finally got to meet Jean and Lee, and they were so wonderful! They have travelled
all over the world and lived in Germany and Mexico, and they've spent months in China, India, and Africa. Neal and I think that they are great role models, as they live their lives a lot like we hope to live ours. We talked about all sorts of wonderful things and they were a wealth of knowledge. Nuynog, their dog, came along too. And I took right to her, as I love studying the Celts and her name means hungry in gaelic (apparently she was always the first to the chow bowl as a pup!).
We decided not to splurge and buy the expensive tickets to get into the buildings at Old Salem, but we did look around and admire the architecture. It is amazing to learn about the Moravians (the Germanic settlers here) and imagine what life must have been like back then. We saw the Moravian Star everywhere in Winston-Salem.
Jean's favorite part of the town were the stone walls that were absolutely everywhere and breathtaking. The way they must have fitted the stones, with such delicacy, is a testament to human patience and ingenuity.
My favorite place was God's Acre, a cemetary behind the town (and hidden,
as there were hardly any tourists there) with graves dating back 200-300 years. I wonder if the stones had been standing at one point, because most were now lying flat and separated into sections. I think I like cemetaries because, even though I may never know the stories of those I look at, I feel like I am somehow preserving their memories by realizing, even for a moment, that they did have one.
Old Salem comes right up to the skyscraper downtown area of the city, so by the time we reached the end of the town we were almost right under the domed Wachovia building. After looking at a giant tin coffee pot that sat outside of the Mickey Bros Tin Shop, we decided to hop into a cafe for some coffee. We found a Mediterranean Cafe and had drinks, and Jean and Lee split a falafel (we'd already eaten, darnit!). Anyway, there were people smoking hookahs and pictures of local bellydancers all over the walls.
Bethabara
Okay, so I went around calling it Betha-bara for 2 days before we went, but Lee discovered it is actually Be-THA-bara. So I have been having a hard time calling it
that! This was what we were really looking for regarding the Moravians. It was the oldest Moravian settlement in the US, and also the only reconstruction built on the actual site. It was full of archeological sites and the foundations of the old buildings. The thing that amazed us most was the size of everything. The basement of the boarding house was no more than 20x20 feet. It seemed impossible that, even though there had been two stories, people could function in that amount of space.
There were also gardens on the grounds that grew the same produce that was originally grown by the Moravians. Behind this was a neat reconstruction of the original site. A small house was supposed to have housed 15 men for over 2 years. Wow. It puts it all into some kind of perspective. We really loved the old clay stove, and Jean talked about how it reminded her of those they use in Argentina.
There are over 20 miles of hiking trails, and back in the woods is an Old Mill and another place called God's Acre (another cemetary maybe?), but we didn't have time to hike this time. I hope Neal and I
can return and explore sometime.
Childress Vineyard
We were going to head over to Greensboro to see the Guilford Revolutionary War Battlefield, but alas, the weather had different plans for us. So we decided instead to head over to Childress Vineyards in Lexington. I've been to my fair share of Breweries in Savannah and Charleston, but never to a Vineyard, so I was excited! The road in was surrounded by long fields of dead-looking vines, and it was just magical, even in the rain. The villa was picturesque and inside was even lovlier. I'll let the pictures do the talking for that.
We went in and took the tour. My favorite room was the one where the wine was stored in charred oak barrels. It was quite amazing, but when you walk in there is the faintest smell of wine. It was the same when we walked into the front doors of the villa. It is so subtle, but I wish there were some way to flavor my house like that.
Jean, Neal, Becky, and I decided to do a wine tasting, and decided on the Reserves since they weren't as sweet. We tried about 12-14 different kinds of
wines, including Chardonnay (mine and Jean's favorite), Merlot, Syrah, and two desert wines. We got to keep the tasting glasses, and later Jean surprised Neal and I with a bottle of the Chardonnay!
(Jean and Lee had also brought us a little statue back from Indonesia...I need to find out exactly who it is and what they symbolize.)
When we left, we went around back to see Lucy, the machine that stomps the grapes and is named after our favorite redhead.
That night, we decided that we had to try some local bbq, and we found a place called Hill's not far from our hotel. It was wonderful! Hushpuppies, bbq, fries, onion rings, cole slaw, the list goes on and on. We had so much fun chatting for hours about traveling and learning and life. The bbq is similar to what we have in SC, but not quite as vinegary.
The next day (this morning, actually) we met at Hill's for breakfast and to say our goodbyes. Jean and Lee said they'd try to come visit us in South Korea, and we promised to come to Argentina when we returned.
I believe this is definately the beginning of a
beautiful friendship!
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