On Tuesday, I had the first match of a racquet ball tournament and it went better than expected. I won against a guy, which teaches racquet ball at the Rec Center and so I'm looking forward to the next game. After I finished playing the game of the tournament I also met my software engineering professor and we also played one set.
The rest of the week was all about Halloween. Americans really live Halloween, that means you can see a lot of people walking around with costumes during the day. And it is also some kind of different, as here they don't really focus on scary costumes, they just want to have funny and nice looking ones. A really cool Halloween event happened on Thursday. At the "Tower of Terror", they turned 3 floors of the eastern twin tower dormitory into a spooky area. It was really popular and so we had to wait for about 1,5 hours. After we went up we could see a fully darkened floor and there were several rooms where people were playing scenes from fairy tales in a scary way. It was really cool and much better than the haunted houses at Kings Island last week.
At Halloween (Friday) we first went to the famous West Virginia Pumpkin House in Kenova, a town next to Huntington. There were more than 3.000 nicely carved pumpkins at the house and also a wall where the pumpkins were lighted within the rhythm of some famous songs.
After we came back, we dressed up and went to the street with the fraternity houses. There were parties in almost every house, so we looked around and stayed at a house with free beer. I think it's obvious that it was a funny night. We also went to Jake's afterwards and had free pancakes at the university before we went to bed. On Saturday I slept long, went climbing at the afternoon and we went out again on another Halloween party.
The weather this week was really strange. On Monday and Tuesday it was about 25°C (77°F) and now at the end of the week it was almost below zero (in Celsius). I talked to a few people and they told me that it is normal that it becomes about -20°C (0°F) in winter, so I hope i never have to stay out long in that time. Americans also have a really strange feeling of temperature. There are several people walking around with shorts now, when its around 0°C. They are also cooling down the houses ridiculously in summer. When I arrived here it was around 30°C outside and inside of some buildings I sometimes felt like I'd need a sweater. They also need enormous amounts of ice in their drinks, even when it's really cold outside.
The traveling plans for the thanksgiving and winter break are also ready. At thanksgiving 2 other international students and I will go to Chicago and Cincinnati. At the winter break we will go to Houston, New Orleans, Tallahasse and Miami, where I will spend Christmas and meet my parents. Afterwards I will fly to the west coast where I will meet a friend from Austria. We will visit San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego. I'll also go to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon before I have to go back to Marshall and the second semester starts. I'm really looking forward to this time and hope I'll have money left afterwards :).
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