Winchester Mystery House

Once Eric read something about the Winchester House in a magazine and how it's one of the things that must be visited in your lifetime...or something like that. Anyway, ever since then he's wanted to go...I have too. I've never been before and every time I pass it while going to my favorite mall I say "one of these day's I'll go". So this trip we planned it in our agenda.

For those of you who don't know the story, I'll sum it up for you:
The Winchester Mystery House is a well-know California Mansion, it was under construction continuously for 38 years. When Mrs. Winchester's daughter died in 1866 and her husband died in 1881 she seeked solace so she got advice from the "Boston Medium". He told her that people die and their spirits now seek vengeance...so she must move to the west and buy a home and never stop building it, if she continues building she will live, stop and she will die...it didn't work because she eventually died. Since she could never stop building there are doors that need to no where, windows in the floor and stairs that lead to the ceiling...i guess she also did this so that the spirits wouldn't find her. The house reached 7 stories at one point (there was an earthquake and it didn't last).

This is the door that leads to nowhere

Window in the floor

Mrs. Winchester's bedroom...where she died!

This was the prettiest part of the tour, looking over the gardens!

The tour was pretty interesting...and the tour guide was weird. He spoke with a creepy tone, but when you asked him a question he sounded normal...which was hilarious! Eric and I thought the mansion was going to be a lot weirder than it was...there is only one door that leads to nowhere, one staircase that leads to the ceiling (don't even think we saw it), one window in the floor...and a ton of other weird things. The house is still crazy but you always talk things up in your head so it wasn't what we thought it was...but still very interesting.

Stairs that go down, just to go up again...pointless!

We definitely could get lost in the place, there are hardly any halls, you basically just move from one room to the other. The guide said it took him forever to be able to know his way around the house...it's creepy and I wouldn't want to give tours in it, that's for sure! I was scared to go to bed that night thinking I would dream of Mrs. Winchester...I didn't. We wouldn't do it again but we recommend it if you're ever in the area!

To finish off the night, we went and visited Eric's sister Natalie who lives in Walnut Creek. We went out to dinner, played mario kart on the wii (eric loved it so much of course we had to go buy it, but what's cool is we can play against friends and family who have it too!) and just hung out. It was good seeing her!