faschings!

at the beginning of february, when the rest of the world is having mardi gras and karneval, germany is having fashings.   it's all the same thing.   basically, it's the bad spirits getting a get out of jail free card for a week and then getting swept out for a nice clean start to the year.

here in germany, there isn't the flashing for beads though.   but, being germany, there is lots of drinking.  we are not drinkers but we love the parades.   

the week of fashings is a huge party!   the weird thing for me, is the amount of drinking that goes on.   it's crazy.   the parade goers and the paraders.   for this idaho girl, having paraders hand out candy to the kids and cups of alcohol to the adults, was the craziest thing i had ever seen

  if you can get to a good foot parade, those are awesome.   we went to one last year.   this year, we missed it.   the costumes are sometimes freaky but amazing.  you are going to have the good guys, the bad guys and the other guys.   good guys are chasing the bad guys out.  the other guys are just there to have fun.

some of them are pretty scary for the timid.   my daughter was pretty scared at her first one.  the people were great about it though.   they would loift their masks and talk to her and my little guy from far off and kneel down to talk to them.   by the end of the parade, they were enjoying it all.

you never know what your going to see at german parades.   

we go from this wooden bike, to this bike made for 9!   how much fun is this!?

the thing i love at the parades, is the bands!   they are loud!   you can feel these guys coming and they are cool.   they are not like the american bands that all march together.   it's a party for them too ya know.

this is just another crazy thing that we saw this last time.   this whole board, is covered with bottle caps!

if you visit germany at the end of february, look up faschinigs, umzugs, nachtumzug.  you should be able to find one close to you.   they are tons of fun and definitely not your typical american parade.  don't forget to buy a pin while you're there.   some of the bigger parades have some awesome looking necklaces and pins, the smaller one just have plastic ones.   it's about the collecting though.   come join us next faschings!