Kassel Trip #2

Apparently Kassel is my go-to location for all things holiday. This time I went for Thanksgiving. That's not entirely true. Thanksgiving was obviously on a Thursday and I had to go to Berlin on Friday so I couldn't go anywhere for the real Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is what you make it though. So for the real Thanksgiving I went to the Christmas market in Magdeburg and got some delicious rotisserie chicken. I pretended it was turkey and called it a day. I did feel the urge to celebrate with some Americans though. A bunch of us met up in Kassel on Saturday at my friend's apartment with his 6 roommates. We bought some food at the store real quick and whipped up a Thanksgiving dinner. It consisted of chicken (not turkey I know), mashed potatoes, broccoli, peas, and pumpkin pie of course. Afterwards we also made some cherry coke ice cream floats. They were delicious and I could not have asked for more for Thanksgiving (I was very thankful). We also did the usual wandering through town. When you are in a new country, even just walking through town can be a fun experience. I only stayed one night this time though so the weekend went by very fast. We wandered through the park by the Orangerie (if you don't know what that is you need to go back and read some past blogs), we visited the Christmas market, and we visited Hercules again.

A real picture of the Orangerie.

The Thanksgiving gang in front of the Orangerie.

We found sheep in the middle of a city park. Very random. They even had a sheep dog to round them up.

Everyone drinking Glühwein at the Christmas market. Glühwein is a sweet wine served warm. It is everywhere in Germany during Christmas. When it's cold outside, it warms you up.

This green laser shoots through the sky in Kassel and points at the Hercules statue on the top of this hill on the outskirts of the city. 

Kassel Trip #1

So October 31st is a holiday in Germany...not only is it Halloween but it is also Reformation Day, the day that marked the start of religious change in Germany. Because of this, I had a very long weekend. I don't have classes on Friday and October 31st fell on a Monday. So I had Thursday evening to Monday off! I decided to make an Ausflug (outing) to Kassel. Another participant from my program lives there so I had a reason to visit and a place to crash. You see, this whole CBYX program is actually a couch surfing program cleverly disguised as an exchange program. Haha nur ein Scherz (just kidding)! So yeah, I opted to go to Kassel for 4 days and spend Halloween there also. It takes about 4 hours and €19 to get there...not the cheapest or shortest trip but you save on money when you can crash at someone's house.

First of all, my friend that I was visiting lives in a Wohngemeinschaft (WG for short) which is a shared apartment. He has 6 other Mitbewohners (roommates)! When I first heard this, I was alarmed but when I arrived I realized it wasn't so bad. They each had there own large room and the bathroom was usually available when you needed it. It just worked out because all 7 people were just on different schedules so no one ever really found themselves fighting over the bathroom or what not. It just worked. All of his roommates were very nice and interesting. He lived at the top of this tall building so getting to his apartment took climbing a lot of stairs (and then you get to eat Nutella for doing it!). We left the apartment one morning and the sun was streaming through a window just beautifully in the stairwell. I just had to take a photo.

I known it seems by now that I am just a little obsessed with photos that capture sunlight...but my camera does it so well and the photos always look amazing. So I will not stop!

The first morning I woke up in Kassel, there was little time to relax. Me and my friend were on a mission. We were planning on carving pumpkins for Halloween so we had to get to the farmer's market to get the best pumpkins. We did end up getting the best pumpkins and later that weekend, ended up carving them on Halloween and making pumpkin soup with all of his other roommates. It was so much fun and kind of a blur. You see, all of his roommates helped so the soup was literally done by the time I finished carving my pumpkin. It was delicious and we ate it by the candlelight of our beautifully carved pumpkins.

My pumpkin!

There were also some other cool things going on in Kassel that weekend, there was a fair in town complete with Reisenrad (ferris wheel). There were also about a bazillion ladybugs in Kassel that weekend, some of which were black with red spots not red with black spots. So weird! Needless to say, that fair was the focal point of my weekend.

Reisenrad

One of the mutant ladybugs in question.

Kassel is also surrounded by many wonderful parks. One park is by this building called the Orangerie. The building is orangish so I can only imagine that Orangerie is a derivative of "orange" and "menagerie". The park that surrounds it is very beautiful. When you are in the park, you can't imagine that you are in a city. The park is just that big and beautiful.

The building at the end of this path is the Orangerie. 

On the second last day I was in Kassel we decided to go see Herkules (German spelling). It is the main tourist attraction in Kassel. It is this huge statue of Hercules at the top of this very large hill. It takes a bit of determination to get to the top but it is well worth it to see the view. It was also very foggy the day we went so Hercules was shrouded by fog almost the entire way up until we got to the top.

Paradise?

This is an aqueduct. In summer, it has water coming down it from a very old, still working aqueduct system.

Do you see the girl in white...she is taking wedding photos.

Herkules is way at the top of that point. He's hiding in the fog.

Almost there.

In summer, water also runs down this part of the aqueduct. They shut the water off in fall/winter to conserve water. It is also fed by the same very old aqueduct system.

By the time I returned home on Monday night (Halloween night) I had only gotten home in time to serve 3 Trick or Treaters. I felt kind of bad that I had missed all of them until I asked my host mom how many I missed. She said 3. So, on Halloween night only 6 small groups of kids came my house in Germany. You see, Halloween is fairly new in Germany and it is still catching steam. I think in a couple years it will be bigger. Also, yay for me for not putting one picture of myself in the post! The guy I visited in Kassel actually said something very funny once that was kind of true. He said "Your blog is full of pictures...but they are just pictures of yourself that just happen to have Germany in the background." Haha it is totally true...what can I say? I am a narcissist.