Fasching

Today is the last day of Fasching, German Carnival. The celebration is a bit different in each city and some places do call it Karnival, but all in all, it is one big celebration. The craziness starts on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday in a ritual where men wear ties and women will go around and cut them off of the man that they ´choose´I´m not really sure where this part of the tradition comes from, and I haven´t seen it happen so I can´t really give you more details... the weekend is filled with parties and various comedical speaches, and everyone gets dressed up. Some people are in all out costumes as we are on halloween, but others are just in silly hats and suits. I watched some of these speaches on T.V. but obviously didn´t understand what was going on due to my lack of German. Anyhow, some towns hold parades over the weekend, and I went to one with Sabine. In the north these are just good old fashioned parades, but down in the south there is more of a pagan tradition to the Fasching celebration. It started when original settlers of Germany would hold festivities this time of year to scare winter away... The people would dress as witches, and wear bells and walk around trying to shout and scare out the winter and bring spring. When Christianity came into play, the thought is that they tried to adapt their holidays in congruence with the exisiting pagan ones, which is why there is an over lap meanings of the celebration. Here are some picts of the parade I went to:

Another aspect to the parades is that they will pull people (most of the time teenage girls) out of the crowd and harass them in a number of ways... paint their faces, wrap their legs in tape, pick 'em up and carry them over the shoulder for a ways in the parade, throw them in a barrel of hay. But the thing is they love it, it is a tradition that all German kids grow up with and love, so it only seems natural that you would still enjoy it as an adult. So here are some girls that showed up looking normal, and half way throught the parade look like this: Fasching continues on Rose Monday and Fasching Tuesday in another slew of bigger parades (in Köln and Mainz) and parties all leading up to Ash Wednesday when the celebration ends and lent begins... you´d better get all the bad stuff out of your system now :-)

--- on Saturday of last weekend I drove to a city that was an hour away, just to walk around and have a look. There wasn´t a whole lot there, but it was a very cute picture-esq German town. That night I had a girls´ night out with my friends who I will be spending a whole weekend with in Barcelona in April for a Hen Party weekend. Here´s a couple more picts:

1/2 way through, and a whole new me to show to you...

Well I did it! I´d been thinking about going short for a while, and I finally got so tired of the split ends I decided to just do away with it all... I´ve been here for 6 months (well in a week from today) and I figured a perfect point in time to take on a whole new me

before:
after:

This was yesterday, and today was my first time styling it on my own, so of course it doesn´t look as cute as she did it yesterday, but it will just take some time to get there, and I´m still really happy with it

“do you miss it?”

Someone asked me the above question referring to the SF Bay Area on Tuesday night at the pub quiz, and I must say I was a little taken aback. I don’t really know why, but I had to think about it and my first instinct was not to reply yes…. amazing/shocking leap in the personal development of Emily in Germany! The last couple of weeks have been good. I have not been counting the days ‘til I come home (yes the Bay Area will always be home), I have been going out with friends, meeting new people, and still getting to know the older ones more, the weeks aren’t seeming to drag on as much as they did in the beginning… I went through an adjustment period when I got back from my Christmas trip to the US and it took a good three weeks to sort of fall back into things, but now that I have, I really couldn’t imagine myself anywhere but here right now. I still have trips to look forward to, people to get to know, holidays to celebrate, and 6 more months to postpone my real life :-) But, really, I don’t know that I could have appreciated this as much had I not been asked that seemingly simple question… but it’s not really. Yes I do miss my family and friends, and I still get nostalgic thinking about home, I know I will eventually go back, but the pressing emotional strain in longing for my former life has somewhat dissipated through my time here. I am glad that I had such an extensive time to be back here after Christmas. I think it will do me some good, to be away and hopefully gain some perspective on the things that are truly important to me.

kissing overboard

Just a quick one this time… Kissing on the cheek is not super common in the US as a form of casual greeting, but sometimes you see people kiss on one cheek upon greeting someone they are very familiar with, but any more than that is very rare. From my experiences, I was familiar with the ‘double kiss’, one on each cheek, when saying hello or goodbye to someone. This is what I do with my British friends, very fine, and totally ok by me. Now with my German friends (the Rotaractors) there is a three kiss requirement. New to me, but ok, you just tack on one more. But really if you think about it, isn’t it a little much. Maybe there is a wanting to make it special for that group, sort of making the tradition that everyone does, just a little bit more their own. Now here’s the real kicker… I was walking down the street the other day, and saw two Turkish 30-something men greet each other with four kisses. That’s right 4 kisses!! Come on, two on each cheek? Isn’t that going a bit overboard? (this is the point where I tell myself “It’s not bad, it’s just different” the motto they taught us the first day while studying abroad in London about experiencing cultural differences)