Wieverfastelovend - Part of Fasching festival, and a visitor from Chicago!

What is Wieverfastelovend ? It's the entry of women into Fasching. Fasching is the carnival/pre-lent week of celebrations when Germans are at their craziest, which could not be saying much, but they really do go all-out. Initally Fasching was for men only, so when women started to join in the celebration, they got the Thursday before the big weekend celebrations to themselves. On this night, all men must dress up like women to get into establishments. The women can do whatever they like. It was great fun, albeit cold.

I'd gone into Amberg for Wieverfastelovend with some people from Vilseck post, and ran into others who I knew there. Later that night, I picked up my friend, Wanda, who I met on the south island of New Zealand about two years ago (that's the last time I'd seen her). It was pretty delightful to pick her up from the train in a crazy outfit. While she was here, we laid low, as she'd just been to a lot of big Euro cities, and I was fresh off a trip to my mother country, so it worked out perfectly for both of us. Nights of cooking dinner together, sleeping in late, drinking wine and wandering small towns. All a delight. Plus matching shirts. Who can beat that?

Marathon-lasting exhaustion

I've been training for a marathon for several months, and now have had two horridly pathetic weeks of training and the third is off to a poor start, with lingering flu symptoms. I have to get this back in order or will risk limping through the 26.2 miles on May 9th. At 5:07PM tonight, I already felt ready for bed. Does it mean I'm a grandma? Do I need to get my pajamas on? Or is it just recovering from essentially 19 days of company, which I loved but was also difficult to keep up working full time and sight-seeing and visiting. I have hit the wall.

If I go to bed at 6:00, I'll surely wake up at midnight and beat myself up for crashing like an infant. So instead, I will prop myself against the couch and wait for the sun to dip in the sky. Perhaps I'll lay out my clothes for tomorrow so I can get up a little later.

I am soooooo tired!

Carrie and Mom's schedule

After a week of illness-induced home-boundedness, my mom and sister and I are all feeling a little better and plan to do a few small activities this weekend before they head off on a week-long train and bus trip.

It was a really weird week, suddenly losing Grandma Hazel while my mom and Carrie were visiting. I think I expected that she'd live another ten years. I hope that she's somewhere else now with the people who've gone before.

This morning in honor of Grandma and my dad, I got up at 7:30AM and vacuumed and cleaned out my car. They wouldn't approve of a dirty, smelly car. If anyone knows my family, they know we care about cars. Not necessarily fancy cars, but keeping them nice and caring about them. You know, loving your cars...

Today the three of us plan to find a Flohmarkt and then head to a crystal factory and perhaps a few other places.

Monday morning at 7:34AM, Carrie and my mom will hop the train to Praha, then Krakow and then Berlin, where I'll pick them up on Friday--- the three of us will spend our last weekend in Berlin.

Monday, April 12th is Carrie's 31st Birthday. I think we'll have to eat a bowl of frosting for breakfast in her honor. 31 is a great year. I know!

Carrie said "Yuck! Eating a bowl of frosting! Maybe 'Frosted Mini-Wheats'!" We'll see.

Southern North Island Pictures