Hershey’s Chocolate World, Pennsylvania

While on a recent trip to Lancaster while my parents were visiting us, we decided to change the itinerary and take a peek at Hershey’s Chocolate World. Everyone agreed, after all, who can resist the ‘Chocolate temptation’ !

The town of Hershey has streets named after chocolate and cocoa, and street lights that look like Hershey’s Kisses. Chocolate Avenue was one of the first two streets built by Milton Hershey, the founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company when he built up the town for his chocolate empire, the other was Cocoa Avenue. You could easily spend a 3-4 days in Hershey seeing all the attractions, including a garden, a museum, and an amusement park named Hersheypark. The admission for Hersheypark does not make it the kind of place where you spend only a couple of hours. If you want to visit Hersheypark, plan to make it a full day. If you only have a few hours and this is your first visit to Hershey, your
destination should be Hershey’s Chocolate World.

Hershey’s Chocolate World has several attractions, one of them is free and others have admission fee. We started with the free attraction: Hershey’s Great American Chocolate Tour Ride.

The tour gives a free 10-minute low-thrill amusement park dark ride appropriate for all ages. The tour shows a simulation of the chocolate making process. This ride is an original attraction, which opened on June 30, 1973, and has been updated numerous times. This ride/tour is both fun and informative, and should not be missed.

Not long into the ride, you will be introduced to three singing cows. They sing a catchy tune that will stay in your head for hours. Gia was ecstatic to see the cows peeping out of their barn

Living Our Values - Visiting the 9/11 Memorial with Gia

On a recent trip to the City we visited the 9/11 Memorial that was opened to the public on opened in May 2014. Bringing Gia to the 9/11 site is probably going to serve as her first memory of getting to know about the tragedy that struck America 13 years ago. Although at this age she would not understand the meaning or context of what happened on the tragic day but ultimately though, she will learn about the horrific events of September 11. Familiarizing her to the monuments of 9/11 significance will prepare her gently to absorb the events of September 11, 2001 in times to come.

The 9/11 Memorial opened on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. It consists of two pools set in the footprints of the original Twin Towers. Thirty-foot waterfalls—the largest in North America—cascade into the pools, each then descending into a center void. The names of the victims are inscribed in bronze parapets around the pools. The Memorial was designed by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker. The design was selected through an international competition that received 5,201 submissions from 63 countries.

The nearly 3,000 names of the men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 are inscribed in bronze on parapets surrounding the twin Memorial pools.

There’s a lot of space near the pools with benches for sitting and trees for shade in the grove. We sat on the benches for a while and experienced somberness at that moment. Because of the tall walls around the fountains, Gia was not able to easily see into them and so her dad lifted her up to show her the view of the pools. Gia gently ran her fingers on the names over one of the names inscribed on the walls and with a curious look turned towards her dad.

Soon we as parents of a growing toddler will be faced with the challenge of exploring the hard details of this day with our children. We need to begin these conversations early on and discover answers together. Sept. 11 has become a date of reflection, remembrance and respect.