Brothers Grimm

Its sunday, and I had mentioned earlier in my stay that it would be interesting to go to church one sunday to see what it was like. So today was the day. We ate around 10:30 and then went to the protestant church in Kleinseelheim (a neighboring village). There were maybe 15 people there including the priest (I guess is what he would be called...) and the organist. We sang 5 hymns which were split by the priest both speaking and reading questions followed by written answers from the hymn book. The church itself was very cold due to the thick, stone walls and was beautiful both inside and outside. The formality, however made me miss my very modern church at home and the friendliness of the people that attend it. The bells of the church were manually rung by ropes pulled by the children in the town that were going through conformation, which is something I have never seen in church. As the priest finished we followed him out of the church, shook his hand, and left. We made it back home and all went upstairs and drank coffee and hung out in the kitchen. As we were looking at the newspaper we saw a photo of one of the antique cars from yesterday on the front page and then realized that we were all in the background of the picture! I felt pretty famous. ha. Later on there was a parade that was going through their town and in front of the house to celebrate the 75th (i think..) anniversary of the local soccer club (or something like that). Anyways, Frau Kleinfeld's parents came over to see the parade and eat cake and drink coffee with all of us. Their Oma is hilarious while their Opa is more soft spoken and seems to be in his own world, which only makes them more funny/cute. The parade consisted of tractors (bulldogs) pulling groups of people drinking or singing and waving to the houses. At the end of the parade route they all went to a big party at a tent in the town to celebrate. We however went upstairs and drank coffee and ate cake and waffles which was fun to visit with their grandparents. They left after we finished and then Franzies parents, Franzie, and I all went to go see Emporer William's Tower which sits on top of Marburg overlooking the entire town. You can see in this picture the castle (the big brown thing) that sits on top of the Altstadt that I talked about going to on an earlier day. This tower is said to be the inspiration for the Brothers Grimm to write Rapunzel. The Grimm brothers attended the university in Marburg to study law and used the surrounding areas/themes to write Little Red Riding Hood (what the local girls wore), Rapunzel (the tower), and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (the seven hills/mountains that surround Marburg). I had no idea that all of this existed until I read all about it this afternoon. The tower is beautiful and the forest that surrounds it. We went home not too soon after, because everyone was tired and chilled for a bit until we went to Kirchain to eat at an Italian restaurant. I had pizza with pepperoni, (basically salami) ham, and fries on top. It was delicious. After this we went home and started to make the chocolate cupcakes for a BBQ we are having tomorrow with her Biology class, as its their last class before summer. While they were cooking, we watched Larry Crowne with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts and I understood what was going on! Herr Dieter was impressed (: ha. In retrospect to my first couple of days here, I am MUCH more comfortable and feel at home in the house which is usually pretty difficult for me...but I love it here!