Clowns and Candy = Rosenmontag

Our gang as we headed to the parade
(L to R): Melanie, Claudia, Petra, Me, Constantine, Achim

The Rosenmontag parade was awesome! Every single spectator was in costume, as well as every person involved in the parade. In addition to smiling at the funny floats and dancing along with the marching bands, we spent most of the parade yelling out "Karamelle!!" at the top of our lungs to entice the paraders to throw candy and flowers our way. It worked, too, because we ended up with Halloween-worthy quantities by the end!

What really surprised me about Rosenmontag was how family-friendly the whole thing was. In spite of the craziness and the drunken masses, it still felt orderly, in that only-the-Germans-could-do-it way. We saw lots of kids lined up along the parade route, gleefully catching candy as it was tossed their way.

After four hours of parade watching, singing, and shouting, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a tiny fast food Chinese joint. With our bellies happily full of fried Chinese goodness, we started to head towards the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train home. Boy did we get lucky on that one. We totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to get back due to the crowds. We ended up making it there with 2 minutes to spare....and that was only because the train was 5 minutes late! Good to know for next time, I guess. :)

Anyway, the whole experience was fantastically fun, and definitely makes me want to go to Karnival again next year. Although our pics are online here, I've posted some highlight pics from Rosenmontag below.

One of the adorable kids at the parade

Pirate ship float

Fun lion/dragon thingyAnother cool floatClown marching band
Birkenstock gummies that Andy caught - only in Germany! :)

Parade candy - most with special Karnival wrappers

Wow. A soft waffle...that's a new one.

Komplete Kraziness

Oh my gosh, I am in love with Köln!

We had such a great time in Köln for Karnival last weekend. That town is super fun. Everyone was friendly and happy, and there were so many fun things to do. It's a bit hard to condense all of the craziness into one post, but I'll try to give a good recap...albeit a long one!

We left Stuttgart for Köln on Friday with Shravanthi, Marjetka, and Marjetka's friend, Maya, who had driven up to Stuttgart from Slovenia the day before. We hopped on the Autobahn, and arrived in Köln 4 hours later. After checking in at the Fremdenzimmer Helga (great place to stay, by the way), we headed downtown for dinner. Since *everyone* wears costumes during Karnival, we decided to wear part of our full costume downtown...basically wigs and hats. This was a good idea, because if we hadn't we definitely would've stuck out as misfits!
As you can see, we had a bit of a theme to our costumes. Shravanthi, Marjetka, and I were "leopard girls", and Andy was our official "manager". This came in handy to have a manager when we were out dancing because he could scare off any weirdos that approached us.

Anyway, wandering the streets downtown, we came across a nice brewery, called Sünner im Walfisch, and stopped in for dinner and Kölsch. Kölsch is the official beer of Köln. It's served in small, 0,2 liter glasses, is easy to drink, and is very tasty. The Sünner brewery serves it in giant cylinders with a personal tap, like so:
At the brewery, it was so cool because it was obvious that Karnival is really all ages. The table next to us was a table of retirees, who had been there drinking Kölsch together all afternoon; they went through two 5 liter "columns" of beer while we were there. I feel like you would never see that in the US. They were so fun - singing along to songs and chatting it up. Loved it. After dinner we spent the rest of the night hopping from bar to bar and shaking our groove things on the dance floor. Super fun. On the way home, our train ride was full of tipsy, costumed people, who were happily leading the train in song. Although there were many impressive costumes, I think Broccoli Man was our favorite:
The next morning, we headed downtown, sans costumes, for some shopping (Köln is one of the fashion centers in Deutschland). Once again, it was clear that one should never leave home without a costume during Karnival. That day there was a huge party in the Neumarkt Platz, with tons of families and groups of friends all in costume. Check out this panorama to see the size of the thing!We stayed and sang a few songs at the party, and got a bit of a Karnival history run-down (auf Deutsch) from a friendly dad next to us. From there we walked to the Dom: the huge, beautiful, famous Gothic cathedral of Köln. All I can say about that is "Wow." That cathedral is too amazing to describe in words. It is so tall you can barely focus your eyes on the tips of the spires.

Standing in front of the Dom in Köln

That night we went out in "full" costume. Dressed all crazy from head-to-toe. We saw lots of funny people in costume, and of course took many pics (included in our Costume Hall of Fame, below). We danced, sang songs, people-watched, and listened to a marching band playing in the street. Another great night.

The red pouches around our necks are specially
designed to hold glasses of Kölsch. Cooooool.

The next day, Shravanthi, Marjetka, and Maya left to return to Stuttgart, and Andy and I stayed to await the arrival of Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), supposedly the biggest day of Karnival. In fact, so big, thatI think I'll have to put it in a separate post! Until that second post, feel free to browse our catalog of pics from the weekend here.

"Karnival Costume Hall of Fame"

In Germany, the new year comes in with a bang!

Now that I have finished posting about our Christmastime here in Germany, it's high time I told you all about how cool New Year's Eve is here. In my opinion, in the US there's not a whole lot to look forward to on NYE. Maybe you have a party to go to, but as far as the hours leading up to a grand event, the "ball-drop" just doesn't do a whole lot for me. Not the case here!

In Germany, NYE is mass chaos, and it's well worth waiting up for the big show: children and drunken adults, with little-to-no safety training in the use of pyrotechnics, setting off fireworks they purchased at the dollar store the day before, on, no joke, every single street corner of the entire city. It's mayhem, and it's great!

I put a video of what this craziness looks like from a high vantage point. You can see explosions of color and light going off all over the city, all at once. Be sure to watch it with the sound on to get the "war zone" feel of the whole thing. The video is only a couple of minutes long, but the actual event went on for at least 2 hours. Man, you get a couple of beers in people, and they just go wild! :)

The Big "P"

Wow. It is a big relief to finally post these pics from Prague! We did so many things that I had hundreds of pictures to filter through. For all of you out there that don't feel like going through the entire slide show (found here), I'll give a brief recap here of Prague adventures. :)

We stayed at the Hotel U Pava, which translates to the hotel "at the peacock.". The hotel used to be a seminary, and was complete with winding staircases, religious paintings, and lively frescoes on the ceiling of the hotel restaurant.

U Pava Peacock

Ceiling Frescoes in U Pava's Restaurant

The location was great because we were right by the Charles Bridge, which is one of the biggest attractions in Prague. It's a long bridge over the River Vltava, commissioned by Holy Roman Emporer Charles IV in 1357, with scenic views and bronze statues up and down the sides. Very pretty.

Walking Along the Charles Bridge

View from the Charles Bridge

On our first day in Prague, we headed to the Jewish quarter. Probably the most famous thing in this part of town is the Old Jewish Cemetery. Since the Jews weren't allowed to bury their dead outside of their district, this cemetery was used for more than 400 years. When it became full, they would add a new layer of dirt to accommodate the bodies, then shift the previously laid tombstones up to the top of the new layer. The end result is a cemetery 12 layers deep, containing an estimated 20,000 bodies and 12,000 tombstones. Really incredible to see. The most famous tomb is of Rabbi Loew, who, according to legend, created a monster called Golem to protect the Jews and help keep them safe.

Tombstones at the Old Jewish Cemetery

That night we went to see a marionette puppet show, since Prague is known for their puppet craftsmen and puppetmasters. The show was at the National Marionette Theater, and the performance was Mozart's opera 'Don Giovanni' acted out by three-and-a-half foot tall marionette puppets. It was really clever and very fun to watch.

Scene from the Marionette Puppet Show

Throughout the trip we saw lots of marionette puppet stores, and some of the puppets were just so incredible. Andy and I ended up buying a Jester puppet as a souvenir. Here were some of our other favorites:

Our Super-Cool Jester Puppet

My favorite: The Dragon Puppet
Andy's favorite: The Eskimo Puppet

In the town square of Prague's "Old Town" there was a Christmas market (are you seeing a theme here? Europe loves these things!). We bought a Prague pastry called a Trdlo, that was delicious. It's basically yeast dough, wrapped around a cylinder, rolled in sugar and cinnamon, and roasted over an open flame. Sooooo good. Also in the square we saw the Astronomical Clock which displays the current zodiac sign, the phase of the moon, the patron saint for that day, and the time. It also puts on a show at the top of every hour: two windows open to reveal statues of the 12 disciples parading past and a skeleton representing death pulls a cord to ring the bell. It was neat.

Old Town Square with Christmas Market

Astronomical Clock

The Clock during "The Show"

Our last big excursion was to the Prague Castle. The castle is pretty cool because it has been home to the leader of Prague since it was completed in 850 AD; the current president resides there now. The most famous site there is the St. Vitus cathedral. Inside it is filled with beautiful stained glass windows, one of which was designed by the famous Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha. It also has a tower with spectacular views of Prague, as long as you're willing to climb a spiral staircase with 287 steps! Well worth it though. :) After all that exercise, we treated ourselves to a relaxing lunch (excellent goulash!) at a nearby restaurant.

Mucha Stained Glass Window

View of Prague from the TowerPosing with the St. Vitus Spires behind us
Fun Times at Lunch after our Castle Excursion

All in all, it was a great trip. I would highly recommend Prague to those looking for an exciting European adventure. The architecture there is just beautiful, so just walking through the city streets was a treat. Plus they had gorgeous art glass and cut crystal boutiques, and some of the best beer in the world!! If you ever see Velkopopovický Kozel on a menu somewhere, you have to try it!

Silly Christmas Pics

Before I post the Prague pics that I just finished organizing, I thought I would put up some of the pics from our family Christmas celebration. Since we travelled to Prague on Christmas Day, we decided to celebrate "German-style" and open up presents on Christmas Eve. I roasted a Christmas goose, stuffed with wild rice and green apples. It was very good. And of course, we ate lots of Christmas cookies, since I went a little overboard with the cookie baking this year. :)

The goose before...

...and after! (pay no attention to the silly antlers on my head :))
My two Christmas gingergread houses (on display before consumption)Pretty carved wooden creche Mom bought at the Weihnachtsmarkt
Showing off our Christmas hats
The traditional Christmas Canasta game
Pretty gingerbread men :)