6/13/2011 22:00 Krumpendorf

This morning was an early morning because we wanted to leave by 9:15ish. We picked up that girl who took me to the bar on saturday night who will now be known as KD, and brought her with us to a little, and i don't use the word little lightly, town called weitensfeld. It was a holiday, which i think translates to pentecost, and this town has a strange tradition. The plague wiped ot the whole town except four people, three boys and one girl. All the boys wanted to marry the girl, so she said that they must race, and she would marry the fastest. In the center of the town there is a statue of her, and they call it the stone virgin. Every year they have a three day festival, and three boys from this village race to see who gets to kiss the stone virgin. Its a great honor for them. Well, we had read that there would be music and dancing in the town square starting at 10, so we wanted to get there early. We ended up getting there bout 10:30 and yes, there was music, but there wasn't much to do. we ate some sweets, then talked, that ate lunch, then talked, and then stood around for a long time waiting for the race to start at 14:00. When 14:00 finally came around, there were a bunch of politicians on horseback who rode around and also some more prestigious politicians who were there to watch. there were speeches, singing, and then the horses rode three time up and down the main street so the plague couldn't come back. Finally the three boys were introduced, ages 16, 17, and 18. The one who I thought would win the race was the only one who was smiling at the beginning. But then he stumbled when he started, so he lost a bit of time. He still ended up winning though. Which I was pretty happy about. The race was 250 meters, and the winner was brought back to the statue on horseback. He then climbed a ladder and kissed the stone virgin several times (i'm not sure why so many, it's just a rock). We were all tired from standing, and so we left after that. We just went home for a quiet evening, and I called the missionary couple in the ward here to let them know i would be coming to the YSA family home evening. It was small, just me and two other girls, but it was super fun. we ate pizza (pretty sure i had half a pizza), talked about the 10 virgins, played rummy cube, and played phrase pictionary. I just said this, but it was tons of fun!