Kochelsee and Dachau

My favorite season is here! Even though it brings the colder weather, the short days, and the colds. Everyone is sick. Chris got a cold for several weeks, actually since he got back from his retreat beginning of October and is now just getting over it. I caught his cold but it seems to be going away, hopefully for good. We have had less kids in the kindergarten due to colds. Fun stuff! But the colors of the leaves make it worth it! maybe.

We went to Kochelsee one weekend. It was also the week we had our coldest temperatures so far and our first snow of the year. So, well, maybe not the best weekend to walk around outside. The lake was beautiful. This picture shows how the weather couldn't make up its mind whether to have fall or just start winter. We ate at a Germanized-Americanized-Mexican restaurant. We shared a burrito and a cheeseburger and they were huge! It was very good, the best we have had around here. The restaurant was in a bath house that had an indoor and outdoor swimming pool. There were a lot of people there. It had a gorgeous view of the lake. We sat warm as we watched it snow outside, then went on a short hike. We ended up at an hydroelectricity plant that lies between the upper and lower lakes. The water goes down these huge tubes from the lake higher up the mountain and is be forced through water wheels to generate the electricity (the green thingy's in the other picture). We caught a picture with a Bavarian man with his traditional hat on. It was quite a place. Chris loved it. Got some science in our weekend.

On many weekends when we stay around Munich, we take a walk along the Isar River. On this day the temperature had warmed back up, becoming more fall than winter. It was quite warm. Okay, warm was like 55 degrees. It is amazing how you get used to the temperature.

We celebrated Halloween at the Kindergarten. We had decorated the room with the kids' crafts all month of jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, bats, and spiders. We even carved a real jack-o-lantern with the kids. It was a lot of fun. We made pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, and baked pumpkin seeds. On the Friday, we had all the kids and parents come in costume where we ate the delicious food and danced. It was great to see how the parents got involved. Also interesting how every parent's costume was scary. When a kid said they wanted to be a princess or fairy I heard several parents say, what about a ghost or a witch. I had told the kids they could be anything, scary or not. We had several fairies, a couple of witches, a ghost, a black cat, a knight, etc. I went as a fairy. My co-teachers were dressed as a painter and as a cat. Chris and I were going to go to Nancy's house for a halloween party. I have mentioned Nancy in the last post. She lives in Ulm. It would have taken 3 hours to get there but we would have spent the night. Chris however felt horrible. His cold had gotten worse that weekend so we stayed home. We ended up getting three groups of about 4 or5 teenagers (14-15 year olds) come by in scary costumes to trick or treat. They said it in German. It is getting more and more popular in this age group around here.

This weekend we went to Dachau concentration camp. It's one of those things we've been putting off. Yeah, its a worthwhile experience, but... Anyway, we finally got round to seeing it. It is actually quite close; only 30 minutes from the center of Munich. We walked around. The temperature has gotten back into the low 40s. So it was really cold today as we walked around. At the exit of the train station, there is the "Path of Remembrance". It follows the route the prisoners had to walk from the station to the camp. Along the path they put up boards of information. We decided to walk it versus taking the bus. We consider ourselves pretty smart on directions and so forth, but we lost the path several times along the way. There were no markings. You had to remember the map that was on the board back at the train station, and even then it wasn't very specific. When we got there we saw many Americans there. "Arbeit Macht Frei" is written in the door to the entrance of the camp. It means "Work makes you free." It was a joke towards the prisoners. Dachau was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. We have seen so many movies this last year that has a plot based on this time period of Germany, so it was interesting to see one in person. It was an interesting weekend.

The days are getting shorter now and the weather is getting colder. I have seen some Christmas lights starting to go up and they are now putting up Tollwood, one of the larger Christmas markets/music festivals for the Christmas season. I am loving the atmosphere here, but it is strange to go home when it is already getting dark at 4:30. We are also counting down the days til the break when we return home to see everyone again. Just six weeks!