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From Abroad

As announced in the last posting, we took another chance to see more of this country. Since Election-Tuesday’s classes were cancelled, we decided to skip classes on Monday, too, and gained an extra long weekend.

Colin, my friend who also is a Wood Science graduate student, comes from Philadelphia. And he has a car. And he took the occasion of election day weekend to go home. Self-evidently I asked him if he would take us (our Italian friends Lorenza and Giulia, as well as Doris and me) with him. He had some doubts that five persons with luggage would fit into his car, but hey – we’re from Europe – we’re perfectly okay with tiny cramped cars, haha! But eventually it was absolutely no problem and we had a nice ride through Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Last Friday was not only the day of our departure; it was the last day in October, hence Halloween. As we arrived at Colin’s family (who thanksworthy hosted us for the night), the streets were crowded with frightening entities only some feet large. It was the first time for the four international students of us that we experienced something like this. It was GREAT fun, when children dressed up as quarterback, samurai or cheerleader knock on the door and whimper “Trick or Treat”. In this moment, we conquered another piece in the puzzle of America culture.

Later this evening we went to a local Halloween party. Not that I disliked it, but it is somewhat crazy how the girls are dressed up to this occasion. Last night of October and they wear little more than underwear. But if you went to a Halloween party in Morgantown, I bet you know, what I’m talking about ; )

On the next day we started early to discover the city of Philadelphia. First we did the American way of discovery: driving around with the car and looked out of the windows. On the picture you see the town hall, topped by a statue of William Penn. Since I turned into a big Phillies fan since I am here, I have to post this Wikipedia page that links this statue with the World Series victory this year.

A lot of cities all over the world have their “signature food”. Vienna’s is the “Wiener Schnitzel”, Salzburg’s signature food is a dessert called “Salzburger Nockerl”. And Philadelphia has its Cheesesteak. Mmhh. After wating in a long line, we finally received a pretty good but pretty expensive (these are the two main attributes of signature foods ;) sandwich with a lot of cheese and chopped steak. And we really liked it!

After sauntering over the hip South Street, it was time to say “Good Bye” to Philadelphia and “Hello” to New York City. I’ll write more about that in the next post. However, I want to finish this one with “Herzlichen Dank” (Thank you very much) to Colin and his family.