Celle

Happy Halloween!!! Oh my goodness how I miss the random and commercialized festivities of the Halloween holiday in the states... corn mazes and haunted houses, pumpkin carving, costume designing, and excessive candy eating. Actually, they are starting to get into it here. We actually had two girls come to our apartment trick-or-treating, or "Susser oder Sauer", but before that Kara and I had somewhat consoled ourselves by acting out the trick-or-treat procession with Pika as the door woman and Kara was Batman (don't ask me why she happened to bring a batman mask to Europe...) and I was a ghost... for lack of time to come up with something more creative. There actually was a party going on tonight at the school, but I am going on a day trip tomorrow early in the morning with some classmates so I decided against it. The party tonight was in celebration for "Berg Fest" which literally translates to "Mountain Party" but this is in reference to the 'hump' of being at the Goethe Institute and not the geographic feature; we are half done with our classes, which is a crazy thought.

Yesterday (Thursday), my class went on a day trip to a town called Celle. It was fun to have our teacher as our tour guide, as he was born in Celle. We went to a museum that showed medieval life in Germany, like farming and other trades, daily life, clothing, etc. And then we went to the Schloss (castle) in Celle that housed the royal family of Neidersachsen (a state in Germany) beginning in the 1500's. Also among our sight-seeing was a cathedral from around 1300. It was so old and very beautiful and intricate. The frescos lining all the walls were beautiful old and new testament scenes. We also went down to the catacombs below the church where all the royalty and their families from 1500 to 1700 are buried.... yeah pretty creepy and claustrophobic. It didn't smell too good either- Carrie kept threatening to pass out :) We also ate at this awesome classic German food restaurant/pub where my teacher proceeded to order a drink that I can't remember the name of, but that was essentially 1 part beer to 1 part Sprite. It was hilarious to me for some reason. I dunno I guess just because a teacher would never really drink in front of his class in the states (correct me if I am wrong, I have been living in Utah for a while now...), but beer is such a part of the culture here that it wasn't even considered weird. Anyway, we had a really fun day as a class.

I got home relatively late but Pato was here! Pika looked 10 years younger... than even her normal 10 years younger... so she looked like she was.... 20. Anyway, they both left today for Hamburg to see Lion King- on stage- in German.

Janet and Mom are getting back tonight from the travels to Berlin, Nuernberg, Eichstaett, Dresden, and Freiberg.

Happy Halloween! Enjoy it for me!