It's that time of year again, officially the season for hot apple cider, football games, colored leaves and progressively shorter days.  The month of September, though pleasant enough, was mostly lackluster in terms of goings-ons.  Now that we're into the third week of October though, things have picked up a little bit and the past couple weekends have been busy.

The last weekend in September was Homecoming at Newark Valley High School, my alma mater.  My younger (though note that I don't use the term "little") brother is one of the captains of the varsity football team and was nominated for Homecoming court; we're so proud of him! :) 

The morning started off with the Homecoming parade, which wound its way through Newark Valley with marching band, Homecoming court and sports teams in tow.  

Opening the parade, the Newark Valley High School marching band.

That afternoon, after everyone settled down from the 10 roaring minutes of parade, we gathered at the school to watch some good, old-fashioned American football!  I personally am not a fan of the sport, but I try to be at least a little supportive of my baby brother and where I come from... I also LOVED the person in the cardinal mascot.  I don't think I've laughed so hard in a while.

The team coming onto the field, with my brother leading the way... and that hilarious cardinal dancing alongside. 

In the end, my brother didn't win the king crown, but NV won the game and everyone went home happy.

The following weekend was the annual Apple Festival, a Newark Valley tradition.  Across from the high school on the edge of town is an old restored farmhouse from the late 1700's called the Bement-Billings Farmstead.  As a kid we took numerous school field trips there to learn about ye olde candle making, ye olde blacksmithing and how cold and unwelcoming ye olde houses were.  They were always my favorite field trips!  Well the Apple Festival is pretty much the same thing, execpt it draws a much larger crowd and they have great food and music and dancing and such.  I haven't been home in a while, so this was the first year I went in about 4 or 5 years.  I'm glad I got to; it was fun!

His sign said he was a "wonder horse", though we couldn't decide what that meant.

Pressing apples for cider on a vintage press... did I mention the Apple Festival has a lot of apple stuff?

English folk dance... I think. 

I even got to shoot my first gun- And I almost hit the Gatorade bottle target with the foam ear plug too!

Spinning yarn.

Nerd alert.

A great bluegrass band that played: The Coal Town Rounders... check out their Facebook site HERE !

Inside the historic house

So other than the few outings mentioned, my days lately have been spent working, getting ready to return to Germany and enjoying the time I have left at home.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about going back to Germany?  Well, I'll be leaving December 11 and arriving in Hamburg December 12!  I think I am now officially allowed to say that my boyfriend, Matthias, and I will be moving to Berlin and starting a new adventure!  He got a great new job that starts on January 1 and, though I'm still hunting, I hope to be doing an internship for a few months in the German capital city.  I'm in the middle of applying for a master's program in Brandenburg for the Fall 2013 semester and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out.  Everything is so uncertain, but exciting and thrilling at the same time.  I have never before made such a huge move in my life with no real concrete plan and had to make it a total leap of faith.  I'm sure I'll find an internship eventually and grad school is still almost a year away, but it's comforting to know that even if it gets hard and frustrating, I won't be alone. :)

On that note, I'll leave everyone with some recent pictures of autumn in beautiful Upstate New York.

Morning glories as the sun rises over our backyard.

Sunset over the field across the road.

The moon still visible at the break of dawn.

Fog in the valley at sunrise.

Oh yeah... and here's a couple pictures of our dog in her Halloween costume, just because it's so freaking cute!  Best $2 I've ever spent!

Sheba the cowgirl.  Yeee-haw!

Until Next Time,

Chelsea

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I last wrote and even though not a whole lot has changed since then, I have done a few cool things.  Last Sunday, September 25, I went with my roommate and my American friend to a game of the German American Football League.  It was actually the semi-finals and our local team, the Kiel Baltic Hurricanes, were playing against the Düsseldorf Panthers.  The Hurricanes, or "Canes" as those in the know call them, have been the league champions the past two years.  I'm going to spoil the ending of my story right here by saying the Hurricanes won.  Next week they will be in the championship game against... wait for it... the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns... Unicorns.  We got this.

As some of you at home might know, I am by no means a football fan.  In fact usually quite the opposite- I avoid football at home like the plague, unless of course if I have a really good reason to watch, like if my brother is playing or there will be really good food at the accompanying party.  I know virtually no rules of the game and mostly can only enjoy the spectacle of the event as a whole.  The game last weekend wasn't a whole lot different, except that for once I wasn't the least knowledgeable person in the group.  My extreme lack of football smarts made it pretty hard to tell my German roommate what was going on, but I wasn't completely clueless, and thankfully Bethany (who actually is a football fan) was there to clear things up.

I wasn't disappointed by the spectacle of it though, as they really did put on a good show, as can be seen in this video I took during the pre-show introductions.

As one can imagine (and see in the video and forthcoming pictures), American football isn't too popular in Germany.  The way I found out about the game in the first place, was a few days before I was at the bakery and there were players from the team handing out free tickets to passersby.  I kid you not, they were just giving out free tickets to their professional football game.  I was actually surprised by the number of people in attendance, but after remembering this is the semi-finals of the national professional football league I had to laugh a little.  It was less populated than most high school football games back home.  But hey, Germany I still commend your effort!

The stadium is actually used for Kiel's soccer team, but you can bet that its wayyy more full on their game days. 

See those cute high school cheerleader looking girls in green? Those are the Hurricane cheerleaders.  See the go-go boot wearing stripper-esque ladies in white? Those are the Düsseldorf Panthers cheerleaders.  Yikes.

So for the past week or so the weather has been exceptionally nice here in the northern-most German state.  I had been forewarned that this was one of the coldest, wettest summers in most Germans' memories, but the past few weeks would have definitely indicated differently.  So naturally wanting to take advantage of the sunny, warm (mid 70s!) weather that I am fearful won't last much longer, I have been riding my bike every day and usually find myself somewhere along the harbor. There is always something happening there and last weekend there was even a sailing regatta for old ships.  I am still getting acclimated to living so close to water and every time I see a boat (which is extremely often) I tend to get a little giddy inside.  For that reason, I have a lot of pictures of the harbor to share with you.  Enjoy...

Oh yeah, Kiel's also the headquarters of the Germany Navy.  That's also why about 80% of the city was bombed to nothing in WWII.

Did I mention I love my bike?

The quay where the Swedish cruise ship docks... its hard to see, but there is a biiiig long glass enclosed gangway visible above the parking lot and under those big blue things on the left.

Most of this past weekend was spent with my Fulbright friends, as we partied, talked, biked and in general just hung out.  The girls who live about 20 minutes away in Neumünster visited Thursday and Friday.  It's nice to have some more fun people just a short train ride away, though it'd be even better if they lived in Kiel with us.  Erika is one of the ETAs living here in Kiel and on Friday one of her friends from college (who also happens to be a Fulbrighter in Munich) came to visit for the weekend.  Sunday we all went to a big flea market a little bit outside the city.  Though I had some problems first finding the flea market, and then had further troubles when the chain fell off my bike gears, I eventually was able to meet up with them.  I also had a big boost of confidence when, after 25 minutes of struggling, I was finally able to fix my bike myself.  Later in the day Erika, Lisa (her visiting friend) and I went to a cute beer garden in a park for some food and drinks,  after which we biked around the Förde (fjord, harbor) a bit before heading home.

A speciality beer called a "Berliner Weisser"... basically beer with flavored syrup in it.  Kind of tastes like a  freeze-pop with beer.  Better than it sounds.

Lisa and Erika on our bike tour.

Pit stop at the aquarium to see the outside seal tanks.

In Gaarden, on the opposite side of the Förde. 

The "administration building" I suppose in the Südfriedhof (South Cemetery) that is near Erika's apartment. 

Today was the Day of German Unity ("Tag der deutschen Einheit" in German), which is Germany's big reunification holiday.  Erika and I thought it might be fun to take a ferry a bit farther out of the harbor and visit an area called Laboe.  There is a beach there and a military memorial and even a real WWII submarine on the shore... Unfortunately because of the holiday we couldn't use our student transportation tickets to take the ferry for free.  We didn't want to pay the ticket price, so we had to think of something else to do.  When there is a holiday in Germany things totally shut down, but we were pleased to find that Starbucks was in fact open, and even though they didn't have the pumpkin lattes and muffins we were craving, we still were able to enjoy some coffee.  

Tomorrow I have to head back to work, and even though my days are short, as is my week, I will be dreaming of Sunday when I will finally be leaving for ISTANBUL! :)  Friday starts my two week autumn break from work and on Sunday I and 6 other Fulbrighters will be traveling to Istanbul... mad amounts of pictures to follow!!

Until next time,

Chelsea