Halloween and Heidelberg

I dislike Halloween. Any holiday with witchcraft and tooth decay at its core will never be a favorite. In Glenside, we treated it as a neighborhood costume party, but I was looking forward to a break in the holiday.

It was not to be.

As we got closer to the close of the month, more and more people started asking what we were doing. The kids, who had previously said they didn't care as long as they got to eat candy that night, started getting that wistful look of "I want to Trick or Treat."So, on Friday, we went on the hunt for costumes. A timely display of cheap Chinese clothes turned Micah into the King of Siam and Maddie into a Chinese princess. Tess has been a Russian princess for too many years to return to the theme. She was an Alpine hiker.

Let me tell you about Halloween on a military base. First, it's mobbed. If you try to get on base at 6 when the Trick or Treating starts, you'll be in about two miles of backed-up traffic of regional Americans and their German friends signing in to get on base. Parking is miserable. It is swarming with kids.

We were forewarned so we came at 4:30, parked, ate at an Italian restaurant and were ready to hit it when the sun went down.

It is what Andy calls a target-rich environment.

Family housing is in apartment blocks; each apartment has a large terrace at one end. Instead of trooping up and down the stairs, families in each building meet on the terrace. Four or so adults take turns handing out scoops of candy to kids who file by (four scoops per apartment building) while the rest of the adults have a cook out on the terrace. There are dozens of buildings so the haul is tremendous. There are army patrol guys every few blocks handing out glow sticks. One little girl asked the man if he dressed up as a soldier for Halloween. It's great to have the glow sticks. I also doubt that there are any smashed pumpkins on the roads.

The next morning was Heidelberg. We wanted to explore some of the city before joining friends of my sister and brother-in-law for dinner. It was one of those amazing places that makes you think, "yes, this is what I came to Germany to see." It's not just that the castle is amazing and every church is beautiful. The town itself is lovely to walk around in. It's pretty and old and well kept. We love it.

Buell and Hans Walter went to graduate school and did post-doc work together. The two have been colleagues at National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson and Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg for years. I had met them in Princeton, but my now 15-year-old nephew Brigg was a bald baby the last time I saw them. They live in the M-P equivalent of a manse. Wonderful house with amazing gardens. Salmon dinner then chatting in a living room warmed by a refurbished wood burning stove from France. The kids got to watch Jungle Book. HW said he was there holding Micah for the last part because Micah got scared of the tiger, but he was also laughing at the funny bits. Good to know that brilliant astronomers can like cartoon bears. MB sent us off well fed, well cared for and with a large bag of fresh-cut herbs. ahhhh.