The School Fasching Celebration

Ronan's school Fasching (read last post to learn about what Fasching is) celebration took place last week. Each class had a different costume theme that was related to the performance each class was to do at the school assembly. Since Ronan's class was performing a cowboy song (which Ronan really disliked), the classroom's theme was cowboys. So all the children were asked to dress up as a cowboy/cowgirl, and if they wanted to dress up as something else, to at least bring a hat and vest so they could change into a cowboy for the performance. Ronan wanted to be a Ninja, so we got him a Ninja outfit along with a toy sword, which he has spent many hours assaulting his parents with.
However, when the day came, we wondered whether we should bring a toy gun with the cowboy outfit. We figured that it wouldn't be appropriate. In the US, it would certainly be frowned upon or worse, especially in consideration of all the school shootings that have happened over the years. So, of course, we figured that bringing a toy pistol to school would be taboo. We didn't bring it.
So we arrive at the school and take Ronan to his classroom and it's complete mayhem! All his classmates were running around crazy shooting off their toy cowboy pistols. It was a no-holds-barred, OK Corral, mass shoot-out. The theme in the classroom across the hall was the muppets, even the Cookie monster had a toy pistol. And here is our child, unarmed, in fact, we'd even forgotten his Ninja sword. He was defenseless and he knew it, we knew it. The tears begin to well up in his eyes and all the excitement of the day disappeared. After all, for a kid who loves to go swordfighting in the park and gets yelled at for pointing his toy guns at his parents, here was his perfect chance to let it all out, to go gun-crazy with his classmates, and what had he done, he had left his weapons at home on the one day when was allowed to have one.
What could we do? Ronan was so dejected and upset. Was there enough time to go back home in the snow storm to get his sword or toy pistol? Hmm, too far. Well, James and I looked at each other. We both thought of the big box store about a mile up the road from the school where they had lots of costumes and toys for kids. Ah, time for a gun run! Yup, we went on a gun run so our child wouldn't feel left out of the mayhem. I just can't imagine having done this in the US. It would be considered so politically incorrect, even though we probably have some of the most liberal gun ownership laws of most developed countries. However, here in conservative, Catholic Bavaria, Fasching is a time where rules are relaxed. Everyone is allowed to go a bit crazy (before Lent) and release some of that pent up energy caused by cabin fever, and that includes dressing up as cowboys and bringing toy pistols to school.
So Ronan donned his costume. We told him we'd be back, we got on our bikes and cycled out in the snow to Kaufland to buy our kid a gun to take to school. We purchased the last Colt 45 in the shop, returned to the school, and made one little boy very happy. However, the irony of this was not lost on us.

Fasching (Mardi Gras) Season

In case you haven't heard, Europe has been experiencing a deep freeze for the past several weeks. Temperatures here in Burghausen have been below zero degrees Celsius for about a 3 weeks. Biking to work and school has been pretty darn cold, but at least we finally had some snow that has stayed on the ground. Burghausen certainly knows how to handle even a minor snowfall by thoroughly plowing and salting the sidewalks, bike lanes, and roads. After all we are near the region of the Salzkammergut in Austria. The name means "Estate of the Salt Chamber" and derives from the Imperial Salt Chamber, the authority charged with running the salt mines of the Habsburg empire. So there's plenty of salt around here. Anyway, that's not what I'm here to talk about.

Today, I want to talk about Fasching! or Mardi Gras as we call it in the States. Most folks associate Mardi Gras only with New Orleans or Rio de Janeiro, but the Catholic areas of Germany also celebrate Fasching in style, Cologne is particularly well known for its Fasching celebrations. In Bavaria, and particularly where we lived years ago in Regensburg, Fasching is celebrated with gusto. From mid-January through to Ash Wednesday, there are costume parties and balls of all kinds on almost every weekend, peaking on Faschingmontag with most pubs in the town hosting all night parties, followed by Faschingsdienstag or Fat Tuesday, which is a wee bit more staid since the bars have to shut down at Midnight. I'm sure the purpose of this celebration is to get us all through the cold dark days of winter and to give observant Catholics a last hurrah before the season of Lent. In the end, what better way to fight cabin fever than to get dressed up and go to parties every weekend, not that I do that any more. But I certainly had my share of Fasching all-nighters, replete with white wurst breakfasts at 6:00 a.m.

I will also mention that the Thursday before Ash Wednesday here is called Weiberfasching or Ladies Fasching. And beware those gentlemen who wear their best ties to work on that day. It is tradition in the workplace, especially banks, for the ladies to cut the gentlemen's ties (so very pagan, I think). I remember walking into the bank each year on Weiberfasching, noticing the ties, and thinking, Ah, Weiberfasching.

There are also Fasching events for children, for example, Ronan's school is having a Fasching party tomorrow. He's even going to wear a costume, he'll be dressed as a Ninja. Ronan never dresses up, he's never even gone trick or treating because he doesn't like to dress up. But he's got costume fever this year. Sorry, I can't show you photos because he doesn't want photos of him in costume going up on Facebook. Smart boy!

So, wherever you are, why not fight off those winter blues by heading off to a mardi gras celebration near you or hosting your own Mardi Gras party! It may not be as wild and crazy as in these parts, but it will take you out of hibernation mode and remind you that you probably have friends out there you haven't seen in a while! Give them a call!

Spinning class

Well, it's been a quiet post-Christmas month here in Burghausen. We have settled into our winter routine, which feels kind of mundane, but I think it's just part of winter hibernation.

We have joined the local sports club, SV Wacker Sportsverein, so that James and Ronan can play soccer and I can take spinning classes. They offer all kinds of sports, including fencing, handball (very popular here), sailing, bowling, gymnastics, and lots more that I can't remember.

I'm trying to get in the routine of doing a spinning class twice a week. The instructor for the Wednesday night class is really good, he plays a good variety of music, pushes us all hard and speaks in a heavy Bavarian dialect, which I'm still trying to get a handle on. Last week he made us climb for 25 minutes, so I just closed my eyes and did the last part of the Mt. Baker Hill Climb. Good times! By the way, I thought my Mt. Baker Bike Club buddies would appreciate the attached photo. Since German shops are closed on Sundays, our local bike shop has an automatic dispenser for bike inner tubes in case you get a flat on a Sunday and the shop is closed. Gotta love it!

So, as far as I can make out, Burghausen doesn't have a road bike group, Mt. biking seems to be more the thing here, we are near the Alps, after all. The spinning group meets for Mt. bike rides once the weather changes, so it looks like I'll be using James' Mt. bike in the spring. The spinning instructor also mentioned that if I want to find folks to road ride with, it would be fairly easy to start a road biking group in the spring, so that will be my plan. Anyway, missing all of my biking buddies. Our door is open if anyone is in the neighborhood!

New Year's Eve or Silvester

I've been trying to finish off my description of the holiday festivities for a while, but have been distracted by the kick-off of tax season. Sigh! That will have to be another posting. Anyway, we spent a lovely few days between Christmas and New Year with our friends Ed and Elizabeth in Munich but returned to Burghausen for the New Year's Eve celebrations. We weren't really sure what to expect and really had no plans in mind for the evening. It's a bit hard to get out for the night with a 7-year old. As it was, the weather was wet and rainy and we saw no signs for fireworks or any major community events. Being so close to Salzburg and in close vicinity to Munich, perhaps Burghausen opts out of major Silvester or New Year's Eve's events, so we spent the evening Skyping with James' family and enjoying time at home.

Though the city of Burghausen had no festivities planned, its citizens had other ideas. Shortly before Midnight, people all over the city began setting off their own fireworks, but the show to top it all was put on by the Chinese restaurant across the street. It set up its own firework canons on the sidewalk and put on an elaborate 20-minute firework show, all of which we could see from our living room window. It sounded like a battlefield out there, but there was a great atmosphere, lot's of folks out and about and other fireworks going off everywhere, and us with a view of it all from our 4th floor window. James got most of the show on video, which you can see on my Facebook page. Unfortunately, it's too long to download here.

The fireworks certainly brought back memories of many a New Year spent on the Steinerne Bruecke (stone bridge) in Regensburg, where the entire town would gather, everyone with a bottle of Champagne in hand, to ring in the New Year and watch the fireworks. Always a crazy night that ended up with us staggering home and sleeping off a hangover the next day. Well no hangovers this year, we rang in 2012 with clear heads.

Christmas and New Year - Part II

So, onto Christmas Eve...

Since it was a Saturday, most of the shops began closing around 1pm in the afternoon. So we did a few last minute things in the morning and then headed back home for the afternoon. But around 2ish, we started to get ancy and decided to go for a walk. As we got near the Burg (or castle), we heard what sounded like a small parade, there were drums and flags in the distance. So we followed the rest of the crowd and headed into the castle. When we arrived at the main part of the castle,, the parade had stopped. There were a few canons set up in the courtyard and a small tent selling?? Yup, Gluhwein and warm mead. My kind of outing. Apparently, it's a Burghausen tradition to fire off the medieval canons on Christmas Eve. So we all stood around drinking Gluhwein as the medieval folks proceeded to toss flags (James thinks this is the origin of the cheerleader) and set off guns and canons. Ronan quite enjoyed it and everyone there was in a wonderful festive mood. Nothing like firing off a canon fire and drinking hot Gluhwein to get in the Christmas spirit!

Christmas and New Year - Part 1

Well, now that the dust has settled from Christmas and New Year, I can finally get around to writing about it. Many of you have asked how we celebrated the holidays in Burghausen. So here's what I can tell you. We opted not to travel anywhere over Christmas and to enjoy a quiet Christmas, just the three of us, in Burghausen.

Festivities began on Dec. 23, the last day of school, with a short Christmas pageant performed by Ronan's class for the parents. Ronan had been humming several of the songs (in German) at home for the last few weeks. He especially liked one song about the lighting of the Adventkranz, which is the German tradition of lighting candles on a small Advent wreath, each candle representing the four advent weeks running up to Christmas. For more info on the advent wreath, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_wreath. We had a small Adventkranz at home and each weekend that we lit the candle, Ronan would bring out the lyrics to the song and sing it while we lit the wreath. It really seemed to resonate with him and encouraged him to sing in German. I really like this tradition, so I think we will be bringing it back with us.

One interesting thing to mention, which I will write on in future postings, is that we live in a heavily Catholic region here in Bavaria, in fact, the Pope hails not far from here. Schools offer separate religion classes for Catholics and Protestants and ethics class for non-denominational children. Ronan goes to Ethics class. And unlike in the States, the major Christian holidays are recognized in the school and celebrated. As far as Christmas goes, I kind of like it, though can't say how I'd feel if I were in the minority.

For more on our Christmas adventures, please see part II

Our Christmas Tree

We bought our Christmas tree last weekend when we rented a car. It's smaller and scrawnier than the usual trees we get each year, but it turned out lovely. When we last lived in Germany 14 years ago, we never had a Christmas tree, so this time around I purposely brought many of our decorations, though I left the lights and the Christmas tree stand at home. So that meant that we had to buy new lights and a new stand here in Germany. Well, as I said in one of my last posts, Germans definitely know how to do Christmas, but I never knew about their fantastically efficient Christmas tree stands. Totally different than what I've seen in the States. There, we have mostly plastic stands with four screws that you have to basically screw into the trunk of your tree while the other person is holding it up straight. It usually takes a few attempts to get it right and maybe you have to do a bit of chopping with the hacksaw. Well, my friends, not with a German stand, the one we bought is simply ingenious. You place the tree in the stand. There are four bars, instead of screws, all connected by a thick wire. Then, using a foot pedal, you push down on it and it tightens the wires and draws the four support bars tight against the tree at an equal tightness so that the tree stands up straight on the first go. I was amazed. It took two minutes to get our tree in the stand and tightened. We were decorating before we knew it. Hats off to whoever invented this handy little tree stand. I can tell you one thing, it's coming back home with us when we leave.