Abbeville

Yesterday our plan of hiking the mountain Table Rock had to be cancelled because of heavy rain. I had been looking forward to that trip, so I was a bit disappointed. Anyway, it was nice to have a day without a time schedule. My host took me for a drive to Ninety Six. For those of you that aren't familiar with South-Carolina's geography, Ninety Six is the name of a city. The city got it's name from what the Cherokees thought was the distance to the nearest cities, ninetysix miles. I thought it was a bit funny :).
Today we went with rotarian Tommy to Abbeville, a small city with 6000 inhabitants (Abbeville county has 26 000 inhabitants). We had a short introduction about the city at the Welcome center, had a tour in the opera house, Burk-Stark's Mansion and the oldest church in town, very beautiful. We ate lunch at The Dutch Oven, a restaurant run by Amish-people. I have always thought that the Amish are living quite isolated from the rest of the modern world in Pennsylvania, but that proved to be wrong. In Abbeville they live side by side with all the others, and participates in the commmunity. I learn something new every day, that's why travelling is so great. Tommy also took us to Erskin College, where we had a tour on campus.
There are so many things to take in, and I can honestly say that we are enjoying everything we do and appreciate the work that has been done to show us all parts of South-Carolina!