Fasching in Mainz - Sunday!

Sunday we went out again to enjoy Fasching. Lots of stuff for kids again today.

On Sunday the floats for Monday's parade are on display. It's great to see them up close, especially for the non-native German speaker as they often have quite a bit of text and/or you need to understand political context to get the joke.

This one is called "Problem Bear" and features a likeness of Putin. This style is pretty typical - the front has a rhyme that kind of explains the float and the artistry on them is pretty amazing.

Americans should appreciate this one, featuring Obama as a lame duck. 

With the Republicans as a shark after him.

This one features the first female secretary of defense for Germany.

 Here's one about drug problems.

And a food safety themed one on the "invasion" of doctored food. Notice that the headless, bleached chicken is carrying an American flag.

It's not all political. We also went to a fun concert and enjoyed the crowds (along with a German beer!).

Fasching in Mainz Saturday

Saturday was the Jugendmaskenzug (Young people's mask parade). The theme this year was "The animal world celebrates Fassenacht" so all the school groups had animal themes. Gail participated with a friend, helping with some younger kids.

Some of the groups in the parade were the Carnival clubs, which just wear their usual outfits.

Some groups were pretty elaborate, like these spiders. I loved the web. 

 This is one of the clubs in their "normal" outfit.

This one made us laugh because it looked so much like an American marching band. 

A few floats in this parade, though it was mainly just marchers.

These are marchers from one of the old Carnival Clubs

Gail waving the flag for her marching group.

Gail with her friend Leah. And some guy behind them. 

Fasching in Mainz - Friday

Friday seemed to be a quiet day. The kids had the day off of school and there were lots of preparations. The stands for food, beer, and rides are being set up on the cathedral square.

Some shops around the main area of festivities are boarding up their windows - this one using Fasching colors. 

Even the statue of Gutenberg is decorated for the event.

TV cameras are set up at the main grandstand for the parade viewing.

Etiquette reminders are posted (The pisser is a pitiful costume.) It's a 35 Euro fine for "Wildpinkeln."

Clean up has already begun.

And, to pick up a theme of the level of kids' independence here - a small girl, wearing her Fasching costume (or maybe she just likes skeleton tights!) doing a little grocery shopping.

Fasching in Mainz - Thursday!

Fasching (Carnival) is a BIG deal in Mainz! So my goal is to put up a short post every day between now and Tuesday sharing some of the party! The first few are from the train station today. All the Fasching decorations are in blue, yellow, red, and white.

There are stands everywhere should you be unprepared for Fasching fashion.

And parades everywhere, even IN the train station.

These are from a concert/street party. This is Thursday afternoon - I can only imagine what Monday and Tuesday will be like!

Frankfurt

Despite living so close to Frankfurt, we rarely actually visit! With Jenni here, though, we had an excuse to go and a fun day in the city. This first was just a fun building we saw. It's a lawyer's office.

 We visited the cathedral, of course. I forgot my camera, and my phone doesn't take great pictures in low light, but I thought this altar was really beautiful, as was the organ.

This is the view of the city across the Main River. We had visited the Städel Museum and took this picture as we walked back to the train station across a wonderful pedestrian bridge. The Städel was a nice surprise - I wasn't really expecting much, but it's a good art museum. I especially loved all the room full of works by Max Beckmann (only in part because there's usually an animal in each of his pictures so it's fun to look for them!)

They've built a wall around the old Jewish cemetery and in the wall is a marker for each of the Frankfurt Jews killed in the holocaust - 11,000 of them.

 Not much is left of the old cemetery itself.

Probably the most famous building in Frankfurt - the town hall.

Bonn

We had a lovely day trip to Bonn in January. We visited the cathedral, of course.

And also Beethoven's house (where he was born - not actually all that interesting!) 

We walked around the outside of the university in Bonn, enjoying one of the few green spaces in the city.

We also visited 2 museums - the very excellent German history museum in Bonn and a special exhibition on space exploration at the art museum. First the German history museum, which covers, basically, from WWII to present day. The museum begins with the Holocaust and then moves into the post-war period. There was a reproduction of a newspaper with graphic pictures from the Holocaust and the headline: "This disgraceful deed: your debt." I'm not including the photo here, as it's quite disturbing.

This picture is from a display of the reconstruction that happened in the first ten years after the war, showing a number of cities (this one is Kassel). Most of the reconstruction was done by women, children, and old men, given that men of fighting age were either dead or, at least in the period immediately after the war, in POW camps.

The story of the Berlin airlift is a great tale. (Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of The Berlin Airlift-June 1948-May 1949 is a good account of it if you're interested.) They were often called "raisin bombers" for the very popular boxes of raisins they dropped, and this is a model someone made of one from raisins.

I didn't take any pictures of the space exhibition (I would've gotten Darth Vader if pictures were allowed) but it was an odd mix of history and technology with art and fantasy. They were combined in a way not typical of American museums. My favorite part was a wooden sphere that you could crawl into, and then could see the northern and southern hemisphere constellations via tiny holes in the wood.

We also came upon a demonstration in front of the city hall of Bonn. It had to do with keeping a particular school open.

Sunday morning at the bakery