Fasnetsonntag

Germany went all medieval on us today with the celebration of Fasnetsonntag. Many of you may be familiar with Carnival or Mardi Gras, celebrating the period before Lent leading up to Easter. Germany has a strong tradition of celebrating this time, but how it's celebrated varies by region. Karneval, Fasching and Fastnacht are several names for similar celebrations in other parts of Germany, but the Schwabish in our region celebrate Fasnet.

There have been celebrations in the past week, like Weibertag (Women's Day) on Thursday, where women storm the Rathaus (City Hall) and cut off the men's Krawatte (ties). We also saw many school children with painted faces for celebrations at school. The towns with the strongest traditions are Catholic, and the nearest Catholic town to us is Rottenburg an der Neckar. We went there today for the Umzug (parade; specifically called "Ommzug" in Rottenburg). It's a 14 km bike ride from our house, and the day was cloudy and windy. We stayed until we couldn't take the cold anymore, but we saw our fill of Hexen (witches) and Narren (fools). It seems that each small town has a Narrenzunft (Fool's guild) that shows up in costume to perform in the parade. Tomorrow is Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) when the celebrations seem to wrap up. It's a public holiday in part of the country, but I don't know about here. Guess I'll find out when I show up to work tomorrow!

The rest of this weekend we've used to get a start on finding a more permanent living situation. We need to leave our furnished apartment where we've had a 6 month lease in May. We saw one place yesterday that we liked, however there were no light fixtures! It's quite common in Germany to have to bring your own washing machine, and sometimes even major kitchen appliances like a stove or refrigerator, but this place just had wires hanging from the ceiling. It's hard to stomach the idea of having to buy half a dozen fixtures, or at the very least, the basic connectors for a bare bulb. It'd be nice to find a place that is just a bit more outfitted.