Pumpkin of DOOM!

Happy Halloween! I'm a few days early, I'll admit, but we have been in the spirit of the season for some time now. We brought back some Halloween decorations from the States in September and immediately displayed them. Now we have added another decoration. A haunting, terrifying, spine-tingling harbinger of DOOM that comes in the form of a squash. That's right, we finally carved our pumpkin.

Ok, when I say "we finally carved our pumpkin" I should probably be saying "Brenda finally carved our pumpkin". I, however, played a very important role. I warmed up the glühwein and drank it in front of Brenda. Also, I was her cheerleader and said such helpful things as "wow, you're good with that knife" and "why are you looking at me like that?" and "maybe you should put the knife down".

As the picture above illustrates, Brenda separated the pumpkin seeds from the other pumpkin goo. After she finished carving her masterpiece she roasted the seeds, turning them into a delicious snack.

And here is the terrifying pumpkin.

You may be interested to know that our week was not limited to Halloween festivities. I, for instance, had a few more German language classes which I'm really enjoying. On Friday, Brenda and I went to Anna Bolena at the Alte Oper. The 3 hour opera (not counting intermission) was done concert style which means there was no staging. It was really well done by everyone involved. Elza van den Heever, a soprano that works full-time at Oper Frankfurt, sang the title role. She was nothing short of fantastic.

Brenda and I also went on a scouting mission to IKEA last week. While we didn't buy much (a couple of tea lights, a dish washing brush, a plastic cutting board) we did find a ton of stuff we'd really like to buy. We ate dinner there as well which threw a wrench into my diet. I don't think I will lose much weight eating Swedish meat balls and french fries but they sure tasted good.

That's pretty much it. We've been taking a lot of walks and enjoying the brisk fall weather. The sun hasn't completely left for the Winter but we're getting ready emotionally for that to happen. Our daylight savings time came into effect this weekend so now its getting dark shortly after noon (at least that's what it feels like). I'm not sure what this week will bring but whatever it is, you'll hear about it next week. Until then, Happy Halloween!