Helau, Helau, Helau!!!

Hallo Leute!!! That means 'hello people'. I'm sorry I have been absent for so long. We have been busy, busy people! The last couple of weeks seemed like we had some social event almost every night!

Between Fastnacht parties (at work, church and the institute), having friends in town, dinner invitations, game nights and church events we have been all over the place. Another factor that has kept me from blog time is the fact that my computer hasn't turned on in over a week! Well, actually it is technically "on" but the screen stays black, it wont go to the start up page and if I press any keys it makes a loud, high pitch beeping noise, as if to yell at me for pressing it. So Sam and I have been sharing screen time.

The city outside our window was in a state of full blown Fastnacht happenings from Thursday the 11th at 11:11am until Tuesday the 16th at 11:11pm (there's this thing with the number 11, I'm not really sure). There was a 3 story DJ booth below our window blasting German and sometimes American music from dawn till dusk, the streets were overflowing with singing and dancing people in crazy costumes with beer in their hands, fair-type food and beer stands lining the streets and a parade marching down the street seemingly at all times. Oh yeah, a constant background track of "HELAU, HELAU, HELAU". This is the traditional greeting that everyone uses repeatedly only during Fastnacht.

For me, the whole thing was kicked off with a party at the kindergarten. The kids were so cute and we just sang and danced and ate goodies all day long both Thursday and Friday.

Just a nice big bowl of mini hot dogs for a late morning snack...

Well hey Mr. Bear!
This is the group of kids who were choosing to eat while watching the other kids participate in crazy song and dance traditions...
Just a few cuties enjoying some treats
This little guy was more interested in the popcorn than the camera
They could get their pictures taken...so sweet

More singing...
He needed a little break from the madness
Too cool to smile : )
Elephant friends
He was being a scary dragon

We were clowns together!!

The rest of my pictures from the kindergarten look basically the same so I'll transition to some Fastnacht images from around the city...

Waiting for the kids parade to come through. The kids from the kindergarten were in it!
Here they come...
Waving and yelling, "Helau" and they pass by of course.


After "my" kids passed, we watched the rest from our window, it was real cold that day!

See that ride in the back? We watched that ride whip people around in a spinning, speeding circle for 4 days before we decided to give it a whirl. Boy I wish I could take that decision back!!! It was awful. I cried. Not just a little bit. A lot. I couldn't stop crying for 5 minutes after getting off the ride. I have never felt so close to death in my life. I'll stick to ferris wheels from now on.

Here is the 3 story DJ booth I mentioned, right outside our window. There was a man standing on top of that big thing playing music (unnecessarily loud if you ask me) and yelling "Helau" through the giant speakers. Standing in our room you would have thought we forgot to close the windows. No such luck.

So that's the best I can do to try and share our Fastnacht experience with you. We do have some videos on our camera but we can't figure out how to get them on the blog. We'll keep trying.

Moving on from Fastnacht...

Yesterday was my last day of work for 2 weeks. We leave this Wednesday for Luxembourg and then Belgium! We are very excited for the sights, the hotels, the wining and dining with EU/NATO officials and of course, the chocolate!!! I bought myself a few nice outfits for our conferences and Sam made some extra GRE notecards to study for the train ride. We're all ready to go on our first trip outside of Germany! I don't know if we will have any internet access so, if not, the blog will be out of commission for a couple weeks.

When I go back to work, I will be moving to the "Maxi" Kindergarten to work with the 4-6 year olds. I can't decide if I will like this better or not. I'll let ya know.

Bis Dann ('Till then)

Aufwiedersehen!