Fasching = Carnival

Robin and I went to a Fasching Parade today in Dieburg. Fasching is the German Carnival. Robin went to this parade when he was a child and thought I might find it interesting. I certainly did! Almost everyone was dressed in a costume. Not just an ‘I went to my closet this morning to see if I could find something weird to throw on and call a costume’ kind of costume. The costumes were well planned and many seemed to plan the costume together with a group of friends. We saw groups of frog princesses, cow boys, teddy bears, hippies, and almost anything else you can imagine. It wasn’t just young people participating either. EVERYONE participated (70+ year olds walking around in blue wigs…!). Robin and I did not dress up :)

I took two films and a few pictures of it to give you a taste of what it was like.

See the cowboy in the picture? He was handing out cups of beer from the back of his float. Lots of groups threw candy out for the kids and a few groups passed out small bottles of alcoholic beverages to adults (drinks with approximately 30% alcohol content Robin told me). That is one of the strangest things I have ever seen! I was shocked. Robin said that is how it is here. I’m glad no one tried to give us a drink.  Many people marching in the parade were enjoying drinks of their own too.

The parade had 111 groups participating in it.  We only stayed until group 33. By then I was cold and ready to go. All in all, we had a nice time. Will we go back next year? Umm, we will see.

Everyday Life - Part 6

DEEP FREEZE

It has been very, very cold here the past 2 weeks or so. The temperatures haven’t risen above freezing. Several countries have had lots of snow, airports have been closed, small towns have been cut-off from the outside, and for some, traffic has been a nightmare.  I read a news article saying that the penguins in the zoo in Landau in Rhineland-Palatinate haven’t been swimming in their pool and won’t come out of their heated cave. Now, when the penguins won’t come out, you know it is cold.  There have even been pictures like this one from the Associated Press in Switzerland:

Comparatively, where we live, it has been that bad. Yes, it has been cold, cold, cold, but we have hardly had any snow at all an our temperatures never got below –20 C (-4 F). This is the thermometer on our balcony – the left side is the temperature in Celsius, on the right it is in Fahrenheit.

This is the grand total of snow we got – maybe a centimeter. Maybe.

If every winter were like this, I think we would give serious consideration to a warmer climate. I know I certainly have no problem with 75-80 F everyday year round…. I am looking forward to the temperatures getting to freezing again… and above.

Everyday Life - Part 5

Very old things are a part of everyday life here in German. Very, very old.  Last weekend we visited the ruins of a Roman Villa.  The ruins are as old as 130 AD (they think). That is old, old, old.

This is a scale model of how they believed the ruins looked.  I tried to label everything.

My favorite part was the bath area (probably because that is where you could see the most).  There was a changing area and three bathing rooms each with a different temperature – a warm bath (#3 below), a lukewarm bath (#2), and a cold bath (not shown).  They had a water heating system that allowed the water to flow from one bath to the next (from the warm bath to the cold one). The water then flowed to the toilet (#8).  The white stuff you see dusting some the the stone in the picture is snow. Yup, there was a little bit of snow there… it was cold.  It is hard to see from the picture, but #9 is where the water flowed out of the bath area – out and away to some location unknown to me.

This is a picture of us.  We are standing in front of the toilet because my camera battery was about to run out and I didn’t have time for us to move somewhere else.

Robin is taking a look over the ruins.

This pillar had religious significance in this villa.  It was a Jupiter Pillar and stood about 10 meters tall (about 30 feet). From what I read, this pillar was a mixture of Roman-Celtic worship that was often practiced in the the Northwest Roman provinces.

Here is what is left of the main building.  The walls are about 2 feet high.  They seem to have had a heating system in this building as well.  The water was heating in a small “room” just outside the building.  A slave or other servant kept a fire going there when the head was needed (a really good picture of this can be found on the website here - http://www.haselburg.de/rundgang.html#haupt). The heat went under the floor and also through the bricks in the wall creating what was probably a pleasant temperature.

This site is about 14 km (about 9 miles) from where we live therefore, it belongs to the category of every day life.