Fasching

For almost a week now, the kids have been on break from school. They call it a winter break, but it's really a break for Fasching, also known as Karneval or Carnival.


Fasching begins officially on November 11, when the clubs organizing the parades and festivities start throwing balls. These balls are televised, especially during the week before Ash Wednesday. But to me it seems like all the partying really begins on Weiberfastnacht, the Thursday before Ash Wednesday. This is "Ladies' Night," and women cut off men's ties and collect them. I've never participated, so I'm not really sure how this done, and what does one do with these severed ties later? The parties continue through Faschingsdienstag, also known as Mardi Gras, and there are lots of parades over the weekend. The big parades are on Rosenmontag, or Rose Monday, but the biggest and best of these are in the Cologne/Dusseldorf area and Rhineland.


Since it was wet and cold with a chance of snow, we opted to stay in town and go to the parade in Bruck, one of Erlangen's neighborhoods, on Sunday. This is a very small parade without the impressive floats and costumes of the bigger parades. It also means the kids collect less candy and junk food, which is what they throw from the floats. Two years ago, we went to a parade in the Cologne area, and the kids collected three large shopping bags full of candy, chips, and little toys. But this year, like I said, it was cold and wet, and most of the candy ended up in puddles. And we left the parade about halfway through because our feet were frozen. Well, at least we tried to participate in the big bash before Lent.