February Friends - days 3

Monday deserves a posting all to itself.

We went to Karnival - the German version of Mardi Gras, and boy can they celebrate!
We left our apartment to go to the parade, the last of the Karnival celebrations planned before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, having no idea of what to expect. As you can see from the pictures, everyone wore a costume (Our costumes? Beth Aura said we'd go as tourists, appropriately enough). There were a lot of people with bottles of beer in hand enjoying very loud music while we waited the two hours for the parade to begin. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves- you just had to be there. David, unbeknownst to us, film much of it on his digital camara and cut and edited it for us later in the week. I'd post it here if I could - we'll just have to show you it once we get home.

After the parade festivities, we left, exhausted, for a pub for a late lunch. The food was nice, but the atmosphere took the cake. They had a fire going, and all the fatty foods and wine certainly helped to warm our very cold bodies. We topped the day off with ice cream from our favorite Italian Ice place in our little suburb of Gievenbeck.