American Holiday in Germany

Hope you all had a fun and happy Halloween! Halloween has come to Germany, but is still a new concept. Almost everything associated with it is the creepy part of Halloween and non gruesome costumes are hard to find. People dress up but only at night, and it's mostly children not older kids or grown ups. Both children and adults who do celebrate mostly have parties, not house to house trick or treating. Mary Drehsel said this year for the first time she heard the phrase "Susses oder saeurs" which literally means "sweets or sours" but sauers doesn't just mean sour taste, but also something mean, so it's the German equivalent of "trick or treat".

Here we are in all our Halloween Glory...I'm Pippi Langstrumpf (Pippi Longstocking), Steve is Parpignol, Ian is ein Pirat (peer-aht), and Dominic is a Rebel Snow Trooper on the ice planet Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. Story behind Steve's costume: our student and teacher group went to an Opera two weeks ago, La Boheme. The tenor was excellent. The direction, however, was weird. There's a scene on Christmas Eve where a minor character, Parpignol, distributes toys to kids. In this version, Parpignol was bald with a huge nose and walked hunched over carrying a gym bag full of automatic weapons which he gave to all the kids. Then the parents turned into Zombies and began attacking the main characters. So when Steve found a big plastic nose he went for it, but couldn't find a bald mask and didn't want to shave his head. :)

There was some Trick or Treating in the Moore Haus then we had a group dinner followed by a dance party. Ulla and Daniel turned our weekly Special Dinner into the kickoff of our Halloween Party evening. It's impressive to see what costumes people come up with on limited resources!

Push those tables back and time to dance! Laura pops up!

Cam and Emily groovin' to the music

Adams busts a cool move

Jared getting animatedWhat's Halloween without a little "Thriller"?
Dominic and Ian differed on their opinions of dancing. Ian said "I was bored," and when Dom said he wanted a dance party for his birthday, Ian said, "Then I'll just be bored again." Dom wrote in his journal the next day about the dances he did the night before like the Robot, the Sprinkler, the Shopping Cart, and the Shower. But we don't think he dropped it like it was hot.