Homeless, Hiccups, and Hershey, PA
- Cat
- Jan 4, 2017
- 3 min read
We are officially homeless for the next week. We spent Christmas and New Year's in Lexington, Virginia with family. It was a nice, relaxing, and quiet start to 2017. Spending time with family is something we've never taken for granted, having lived pretty far from all relatives for the last 10 years. The closest we've been was 3 hours when we lived in New Orleans, and we took advantage of the drive to Pensacola, Florida as often as possible - knowing it might be the closest we'd ever be to family.
Last Wednesday, we received an email from our housing coordinator in Finland. Apparently, the woman living in our apartment currently can no longer move out by the date promised as her home renovations are taking longer than expected. What does that mean for us? Well, originally we were offered 2 other options (both smaller than our already small 59m2 apartment) and FREE towel and linen changes every two weeks! Great...NOT.
Though the places were just as nice, going smaller than an already small place seemed unimaginable and frustrating. We had already ordered all our holiday cards and address labels with the new address printed! Plus, our residence permit is linked to our reported address and we have NO CLUE how to change it.
After some back and forth with the housing coordinator we were offered an upgrade - a two bedroom unit with an enclosed balcony! It's still small at 63m2, but it's larger than our original selection, closer to the center of town, and we now have a second bedroom for G - no more couch surfing for him!
Luckily, I hadn't mailed our holiday cards yet so I was able to print a small label for each of them calling attention to the fact that our address had already changed, and we will figure out the address change with the embassy later (I certainly hope that's not an issue).
Monday we picked up our rental car and left Lexington for Philadelphia. We will be spending a week on the road headed to Boston - where we will fly out.
On the way to Philadelphia, we stopped in Hershey, PA. I know, sounds cheesy. But, Hershey's Chocolate World was surprisingly fun. And after all day in the car, G was really excited. In fact, he seemed more excited about chocolate town than Disney or Universal Studios!
We opted for the free chocolate factory tour, the other options were a bit pricey and we didn't want to load up on chocolate tasting close to dinner. It was perfect AND FREE. The tour was cute, similar to several Disney rides, you climbed into a moving car which proceeded to go through the factory, showing you how Hershey's makes their milk chocolate from the cocoa beans to packaging. G was mesmerized. He was ecstatic when they gave him a sample candy bar at the end of the tour - Hershey's Cookie Crunch with Caramel. I don't think we've seen this in stores yet. He said it was good, Adam and I didn't try them because of the cookie pieces.
After the tour, we picked up a photo and walked through the store. We got out only spending $1.85 on a king size Reese's Peanut Butter Cup stuffed with Reese's Pieces - haven't seen those in stores yet either.
The store was huge and had every kind of Hershey's candy imaginable, many we'd never seen. Also, Hershey's has been buying up tons of smaller candy companies over the years, something we didn't know, so there were other brands there (now manufactured under the Hershey name) too.
Overall, it was a good way to spend a few hours. If you're passing through on the way to Philadelphia, we'd recommend stopping. If not, it's probably not worth the detour. We can't comment on the amusement park or the paid portions of the factory as we did neither, maybe another time.
On to Philadelphia!
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