Amish Country Mission Accomplished

...Continued from previous post:
      We started off the following morning, Saturday morning, at the hotel breakfast room, 

...where the waffles came out of the machines oh, so golden and fluffy,

...and the bananas offered little inspirational messages,

...catering. like much of the rest of Amish Country, to those who were of a particular religious persuasion.

       After breakfast we set out on our mission - well, it was my mission, I guess - to find the items I was looking for: a piece of oil cloth for my dining room table,

...and a few more vintage Tiffany Coca-Cola glasses.

       (See previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/to-amish-country-on-a-mission).
        I proposed our first stop be at the Berlin Antique Mall, where I'd found the Tiffany Coca-Cola glasses last year, in hopes that not everyone was such an afficionado of old Coca-Cola  glasses as I was, and that there might still be some of the glasses left there.      

      So we drove up the highway to the Berlin Antique Mall,

...only to learn that it had been replaced by the Mercy Hill Church.

          My hope-o-meter of finding my glasses dropped into the low zone.
     However, I was pretty sure the Berlin Fabrics & Clothing store was still in business, so I suggested that our next stop be to look there for my piece of oil cloth.
           Berlin Fabrics & Clothing is located in a mall called the German Village Center  located on Main Street, which is in fact the main street through Berlin, Ohio. 

      Besides the fabrics store, the German Village Center is also home to a bookstore,

...which carries among its oh-so-clean offerings lots of romantic fiction,

...but still probably wouldn't agree to carry mine,

...though I expect the storylines are basically all the same.

    There's also a hardware store, 

...a pharmacy,

...a bank,

...and a supermarket.

       We headed downstairs to the lower level where Berlin Fabrics & Clothing was located.

      And sure enough, there were the rolls of oilcloth standing outside the store.

      I opted for a few yards of the black oilcloth, which ended up working quite satisfactorily, after I cut it to size, as a table mat.

      As we figured that all the inventory that used to be in the Berlin Antiques Mall must have relocated to somewhere else, we decided to start making the rounds of the Berlin thrift stores, of which there are legion.
        Our first stop was the Share & Care.

...which sold a variety of household items,

...but not my Coca-Cola glasses.
​      Our next stop was the Berlin Village Antique Mall, 

...which was such a vast repository of all sorts of used objects

...that Tom and I decided to split up in our search.

     Though I can't imagine why anyone would want old spice containers,

...soda bottles,

...or beer cans,

...I guess there must be a market for these types of things.
      In the course of my exploration I came across this colorful menorah which I decided to buy.

      (At the check out counter the older Amish woman who checked me out asked me what this object was. I explained to her that it was a menorah, used to celebrate the Jewish feast of Hanukkah. She asked me why it had holes in the top. I told her they were candle holders. I expect you're never too old to learn something new).
​        In a little while I received a call from Tom that he'd found one of my Coca-Cola glasses. I scurried over to his location and, sure enough, there it was. a single glass, priced at $4.00.

     I picked it up to look it over. The glass was cloudy and unappealing-looking. I wondered if I could soak it in vinegar to remove the cloudy film. However, Tom suggested that chances were that the glass's previous owner had already tried that, as a better-looking glass would fetch a higher price. I guessed Tom was right and returned the glass to its shelf.
       Still, I figured there was no harm in looking around the rest of the store, since it was, in any case,  fun perusing all the random stuff on display.   

      Then I found them! A treasure trove of Tiffany Coca-Cola glasses!

       But my elation was cut short when I saw that they were - ugh! - $8.50 each!
     Now, I did want those glasses. That was the point - well, 50% of the point - of coming back to Amish Country. But did I want to pay $8.50 a pop for them?
        I decided to walk around the store and think about it for a while. 
      While wandering around I came across yet another cache of Tiffany Coca-Cola glasses,

      These were priced slightly less at $7.95 each. I decided to buy them. I knew if didn't I'd end up with non-buyer's remorse (which I tend to be hit with more often than the other shopping-related remorse). I bought eight glasses, which, in addition to the four I already had, gave me a set of twelve.
       Once I recovered from my sticker shock, I felt a sense of satisfaction, relief, even, that I'd found what I was looking for. Now, our Amish Country mission accomplished, we were free to spend the rest of the day driving through the countryside or walking around town. Or, I should say, making our way through Saturday afternoon  crowd that packed the main drag of downtown Berlin.

      When lunchtime rolled around we decided not to even try jockeying for seats at one of the restaurants, and opted instead to grab a bite at a gas station Dairy Queen,

...where the burgers were juicy, the fries hot, and to which I would have given five fast-food stars,

...if not for the fact that the ice cream sundaes that were part of our combo meals were served at the same time as the hot food, so that by the time we finished our burgers and fries our sundaes had lost a portion of their personalities,

...though even half melted they were still good.

      After lunch we drove out to the town of Kidron, about half an hour from Berlin,

...where we visited Lehman's, the upscale old-timey-ish dry goods store,

...from which Tom gifted me a couple of years ago with a $116 made in the U.S.A. egg beater (see post from 2/28/2023, www.ailantha.com/blog/the-egg-beater-a-love-story), 

...that still works swell to this day. This time, though, we just looked and didn't buy.
     We then drove back to Berlin and ​swung back to the German Village Center for some peaches.

      For dinner that evening we found a cute place a little outside of town called Olde World Bistro & Bakery. 

...where Tom had the grilled chicken dinner with broccoli and I had a chicken wrap with thick-cut chips.

     Then we headed back to the Comfort Suites Hotel where we spent an enjoyable evening in our room munching on the snickerdoodles and vanilla-iced cookies we'd brought back from the Olde World Bistro & Bakery and watching The Horror of Dracula,

...which, being a fan of 1950's Christopher Lee Dracula movies, I had already seen back when I was, like ten. But which I enjoyed seeing again, all the same.
​        The following morning we left Berlin, passing on our way out of the town the extra large chair built for Jesus upon his return, 

...and, in Millersburg, the next town along the way, 

...the bench honoring a man who loved to help people.

     "That was actually pretty fun this time," said my mate. "We should come back again."
      "We should," I said. "But let's try to make it be for another mission."