karneval

Good morning! This weekend was our first "real" weekend in Münster, and it just so happened to be Karneval, which is a huge party. From what I understand, it's pretty much the German version of Mardi Gras--it takes place the Monday before Ash Wednesday and has historically been a day in which all social norms go out the window and everyone celebrates! The day started out with a gigantic parade, which had some of the craziest floats I've ever seen. The announcers for the parade were hilarious--they were announcing different things going on during the parade, and just providing comments on everything under the sun. I was happy to discover that German parades also hand out candy--that meant lots of free German chocolate! After the parade, we went around the city for a while and ate street food that was super good (french fries and bratwurts, go figure) and just observed the general craziness that was going on. The only bad thing about Karneval was the fact that it's been cold lately for Germany, and so it wasn't very fun to be outside for much of it. Here are a couple pictures from the parade--everyone knows Germans wear leiderhosen all of the time, right? The one on the bottom is one example of the floats in the parade; many were made of fiberglass(?) and were gigantic sculptures of tons of different things--we saw ones of animals, people, and all of the floats were pulled by tractors! W even saw a John Deere. Way to represent, midwest.
On Sunday, Hailey's host dad took us to a volleyball game. The local Münster team is apparently pretty good, and they were playing against a team from Berlin. It was really fun being at the game--there was a pep band of sorts, and everyone at the game would clap on beat to the drum (if you've ever sat next to me in any sort of setting in which clapping on beat is required, you know how difficult that was for me...), and Münster ended up winning the game!

Dinner last night was a grill-out with my host family, Meghan, Hailey, and one of my host dad's piano students. They were all really curious about whether or not Americans grilled out in the snow, and we tried to explain the concept of tailgating to them; they think we're nuts. I'm really glad that I was placed with my host family--I'm still having so much fun getting to know them. On Saturday, Hailey and I played in the snow with my younger host sisters, and discovered the area around Gremmendorf a little bit--I can't wait for spring because this city is going to be so pretty!

This was a little long--sorry about that! Auf Wiedersehen!