How's the Weather?

I thought I would respond to a couple of Frequently Asked Questions... so let's talk about the weather first.

My first big shock was not related to temperatures, but to daylight. Daylight was by far the biggest shockwave I felt on arrival. That and maybe the fact that I don't speak the national language. ;)

Sunrise in December is 8:00, while sunset is 4:15. Boy does that day feel SHORT, and I had a hard time waking up from the ambient light (or lack thereof) in our bedroom, too. In June sunrise is 5:00 while sunset is 9:15. Now (March) both sunrise and sunset are at 6:30, which feels OK. (I wonder if this December the days will still feel super short to me again, or if I will have adjusted fully by then?) FYI, we just switched our clocks forward over the weekend so we're now seven hours ahead of Michigan.

For the nerds: Detroit is 42.20 North and Ingolstadt is 48.46 North in Latitude.

The weather overall is similar to Michigan here, but probably closer to someplace further south, like Cinncinnati or Louisville. Spring comes a month earlier here (so I'm told) and I definitely witnessed a December that acted like November in Michigan. So shave a couple of months (or at least four or six weeks) off winter and you've got a rough idea.

Snowfall, too, is considerably lower overall. Instead of having a constant white blanket, I look at lots of cedars and evergreens and a greenish-brownish lawn most of the time. Oh about every week or ten days we get a good snowfall, which either sticks around for a few days or is wiped out immediately by some rain or rising temps.

January was bitter cold, the mercury hovered around 5 above (F) most of the month. It was really "too cold" to snow, or at least the cold air drove out the humidity. One day I got in the car and found the windshield frosted over on the inside as well as the outside.

It hailed briefly the first week of March. And Munich (an hour south of here) had a huge record snowfall the first weekend in March; three feet in twelve hours in some areas (the storm came up over the Austrian and Italian alps but we only got about eight inches).

What I've found is that a snowfall is a fairly noticeable event; you have the urge to bundle the kids in snowpants and go run around outside, since it'll probably be gone in a day or two. I've heard there are some nearby sledding hills but haven't sought them out just yet.

And they tell me that the summers are less hot and definitely less humid than in Michigan. Since all the houses are made from solid cement, no one has central air around here (probably too expensive to run anyway, given energy costs).

So while I am looking for signs of spring... I keep trying to figure out exactly WHAT those signs ARE... do Bavarians look for the first robin of spring?? We've had rain instead of snow lately, so it seems like it's here.

A few weeks ago it hit the 60 degree mark (give or take), so I opened the windows and started poking around in the backyard. While the snowdrops came up in the garden about a month ago, I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of some other flowers -- looks like we'll have tulips and daffodils, judging from the eight inch tall foliage I see in the yard now, and a clump or two of heather as well, and I think a rhododendron bush.

I am guessing we are in something like zone 7 (or 8?) for gardening, but I'm not really sure. It just seems more like Portland, Oregon and less like Lansing here. I am very interested in what else has roots on our property! Will keep you posted.

February and Fasnet/Fasnacht/Fasching

Fasnacht -- or Fasnet in the Rhine River area (west of here, where Martin is from) -- also known as Fasching here in Bavaria -- is the German version of Mardi Gras, although it's not your typical Mardi Gras over here. I've never been south of the Mason-Dixon line during February, but I have a pre-conceived notion about what Mardi Gras (New Orleans style) is all about, from both mass media and secondhand anecdotes.

Fasnet (Rhine area) traditions are quite historic and date back to Roman times. Originally a pagan festival to dispel the evils of Winter and encourage Spring, it was integrated into the Catholic calendar a handful of centuries ago (don't ask me for the exact date, history is not my strong suit!).

While Fasching -- the Bavarian version -- is also celebrated on the same calendar, it is hardly worth the effort (a few teens with colored hair walking around during the week long school vacation, and some non-traditional parades with commercial floats, etc., from what we hear... the celebration here in Ingolstadt alternates years and 2006 is the "off" year).

So we headed west on two separate weekends in February to catch a couple of the larger Fasnet parades. Each weekend in February a different town (and I do mean town, not city) hosts a Fasnet parade and invites participants from all of the 70-plus (Rhine) towns, including towns in northern Switzerland. We caught the parades in Haigerloch (famous for its castle built into a cliff where (thankfully unsuccessful) atomic tests were conducted during WWII, unbeknownst to the Allies) and in Messkirch.

Of course, each town has its own celebration, starting on "Dirty Thursday" and over the weekend, culminating on Fat Tuesday. In Martin's town, this consisted of the mayor giving the keys to the town hall (Rathaus) to the head of the Fool's Association on Dirty Thursday. The first order of business was for all the fools to release the children from school, and take them from one business to another, where they were given wurst, pretzels, treats, etc. The rest of the celebration was for the adults and no doubt involved a bit of beer too.

But I digress. Back to the larger parades at hand.

Martin had explained to me that each town has its own Fasnet "characters," if you will, generally between four and seven characters per town. The official Fasnet museum is near Haigerloch so we spent some time there the day before the parade and the concept truly crystallized for me.

Most towns have a witch (hexe), for example in Martin's town the witch character is called Eckhexe, after a woman (accused of witchcraft) who lived on Eckstrasse:



As you can see, witch costumes vary considerably from town to town:



Of course, there were other non-witch characters also designed to scare away the evils of winter:





Another aspect of the holiday is to have fun and poke fun of the military or government. So many also have a court jester type of character:





Many characters have bells on the costumes, some of them look very old and very heavy:





There is a bit of military flair to many of the costumes; the pomp and circumstance of these is a strange contrast with the witches.







Many towns have an animal character as well, you can see everything from cats to bats (and yes, this is all real fur):









Each town also has a marching band, which only plays the town song. Most songs I didn't recognize, but one was "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and another sounded a lot like "Runaround Sue." Most were typical marches, but I got a kick out of seeing an entire glockenspiel section in many bands. The Swiss bands were more of the fife and drum variety, and their masks were paper mache (not carved wood).





Of course, some of the band costumes were a bit more playful. Perhaps the town is known for a certain shape of bread roll. Or maybe the band members just think kilts (or sombreros) are cool and exotic. Who really knows the stories behind some of these costumes?







Another motif seen among the characters is botanical. Perhaps your town is perfect for growing hops... or borders the Black Forest.







As you can tell, the characters are as unique as the towns themselves. Literally. Is your town famous for its pretzels? Is there a flour mill in town? Did someone go sleepwalking and land in the flour bin? Or go over a waterfall in a barrel? We really wondered about some of these:











Interacting with the crowd is a big part of the event as well. Penny candy is often thrown for kids, and there is everything from very long (LOUD) whip-cracking going on to being bonked on the head by a bunch of inflated pig bladders.









All in all, it was really a stunning experience, to see all the costumes and to get a feel for the personality of each town. For anyone that sews, carves, knits, or embroiders, the workmanship seen in each costume is truly overwhelming. To see so many costumes in one place (and then town after town of them) is amazing. You quickly realize that the money (about $1,500 to $2,000 per costume) and hours that go into making each one are quite awe-inspiring.

In each of these three-hour parades there were about 5,000 participants, and one mega parade (that we didn't attend) had an estimated 15,000 participants and happens once every four years.

Definitely worth the trip, I highly recommend it.