fulbright blog.: Fasching/Karneval

I used my phone camera, and it apparently had something
on the lens. Apologies.

Erfurt was an absolute madhouse this weekend. (Or, more accurately, for a few hours on Sunday and again on Monday.)

On Sunday I went to church. After that, I stayed for the Kirchenkaffee (coffee time after church), where I had some really good snacks! It was nice to talk to a few of the church members as well. The theme at church (which I have missed for the past few weeks due to Zwickau & Ireland) has been the word "Hallelujah" and it's meaning to us as Christians. I really liked it - we sang a bunch of different versions of the word last Sunday. There were pieces of paper all over the floor with the word printed in different languages, and at the end of the service we each picked one up and put it in a box until Easter. It was very cool. German church is different than American church, but I still really like it.

It appears that Erfurt has an American football team!

After that I wandered around town until the Karneval parade. (Karneval/Fasching is German Mardi Gras, but it doesn't really happen on Tuesday in Erfurt. There's a parade on Sunday, though.) The parade started at 1, and I left church at noon, but I didn't have time to go home because the parade meant that all the trams weren't running regular routes.

The town was all dolled up for the occasion. There were stands selling food and drinks set up along the parade route, and tons of people were dressed in costumes. I was surprised to see that adults were dressed up more often than kids!

A good example of an NSA-themed float.

I finally got a good spot for the parade, but I didn't find it until after the parade had already started (I thought I was going through the main shopping area first, but it turns out that's the end of the route, so I just wandered until I found the parade). There were lots of floats. Most of them were about the NSA since Fasching is a time for people to make fun of the politics of the year. The floats all had loud German music and people would yell "HELAU" (which sounds almost exactly like "hello!") and wave. When the people on the floats waved, they also threw tons of candy. I got hit in the head a few times!!

The NSA is gonna getcha.

After the parade, I had to walk to Robert-Koch-Strasse to catch the tram home. (It really isn't that far, but I normally would've taken the tram from the Domplatz there.) I thought that that was the end of my German Karneval experience apart from watching coverage from Cologne or Mainz on television.

I was wrong.

On Monday morning I got to school during the morning break (a 20 minute break between 2nd and 3rd hours so that the kids can eat second breakfast). The kids who were standing outside the school smoking were all dressed up, which I thought was odd since they were all juniors and seniors. (note: Germans don't use the junior/senior terminology. I just use it when I talk about them cause it's easier for me.) Then two of the juniors came up to me (they were wearing orange safety vests and wigs) and tried to get me to draw a heart on my cheek using red face paint. I declined and told them that we don't have Fasching at home so I was really confused. There were some other kids dressed up as I got closer to the school...then I got close to the door and I could hear music. Really loud music. Really German music. It was.....SCHLAGERMUSIK. (Specifically, this song. Skip to about 0:35...that's where it really starts.)

Then I walked in the doors of the school and noticed that most of the school was packed in the entryway dressed in weird costumes with hearts or smiley faces painted on their cheeks kinda moshing to this song. I'm sure I looked terribly confused as I shoved my way though the crowd to go set my stuff in the teachers' room. I was going to go back and watch them some more, but the bell rang by the time I was done in the teachers' room.

The weirdest thing is that the younger kids didn't dress up as much as the older kids did. Most of the 11th graders were in costumes, but only 2 or 3 of my 5th graders (and I had 2 5th grade classes) were dressed up. (Although technically one entire 5th grade class was dressed up...but that's because they're doing a dress rehearsal for a play.)

Today, actual Mardi Gras, was quiet. It was business as usual at school!