Carnival

Carnival here in Dusseldorf is kind of a crazy thing. I think that it is also hard to explain. It technically starts in Dusseldorf and the rest of the Rheinland on November 11th at 11:11 ( 11/11 at 11:11). I remember there being a big party that day but after that things were pretty quite. Carnival started up again in February. It is a long celebration before the beginning of the Lenten season.
The big celebration begins on a Thursday and ends on a Monday. Thursday was a big night here. The streets of the alt stadt were full of people. There was music playing in the streets and everyone was in costume. My friend Eugenia came up from Italy to join me in the festivities.
Friday was a more relaxed day. Not as many people were in costume. I was happy this day because My friend Meredith who is an au pair in Switzerland right now, came up with her friend Heidi to visit.
Saturday was a bigger day. There was meant to be a street party and more people dressed up in costume. We all dressed up on Saturday. Another one of my friends had some of his good friends down from England so we all joined up.
Sunday Meredith and Heidi had to head back to Zurich. I had hoped for Sunday to be a calm day, but it wasn't. Once again people were in the streets and ready to party.
Monday was the last day of Carnival ( which was relieving). There was a big parade. It was an ok parade, I personally think that the rose festival parade could blow this one out of the water, but I may be a little biased. All of the floats were pulled by large tractors which was kind of strange to see. I hadn't really been associating Dusseldorf with tractors.
On Tuesday there was absolutely nothing going on. I think that everyone was still recovering form the long weekend. I didn't blame them. My host family did not return until very late on Tuesday night. They had gone on a trip to Austria during the Carnival celebrations. It was nice to be able to just relax in the house during the day. I didn't have to worry about anything. It was nice. Carnival was a really fun experience. I don't know that I could do it again anytime soon though.

Some of the guys.

Meredith Heid and I.

Mark and I. I found a place in Dusseldorf that has Munich style beer, served in pints.

Katie and I.

Eugenia and I.

Munich

First off I would like to say thank you to anyone that is reading this because that means you haven't given up on me completely. I have been so awful at posting I feel bad. I am going to make it my new goal to try and post once a week...most likely on a Tuesday night. Susanne is now taking a parenting course on Tuesday nights so I am babysitting which gives me a good chance to sit down with my computer and write about my week. I am planning on posting alot right now because I don't want to jam everything into one post. I am going to start with Munich.

Munich with mom and dad was great. We went to the Dachau Memorial which is the site of a former concentration camp. I thought that it was a really good experience to go to Dachau. It was really sad, but I am glad that I went. I have posted some pictures below that I took there. I didn't post alot of the really depressing photos

This is in front of the main hall at Dachau.

We also went on a brewery tour. This was much more light hearted than our trip though the former concentration camp. We started at the oldest brewery in Munich. After that we went to another small brewery followed by one where we were given a tour of where the beer is actually made. I thought it was really interesting. We also could have dinner at the third brewery.

After that we went to the Hofbrauhaus. I think this one was my favorite. Even though it was super crowded it was still alot of fun. There was a band playing music and old men dressed in Lederhosen with their personal ceramic pitchers.

Liter beers at the Hofbrauhaus. I don't actually know if you could get a smaller size...

Mom was actually drinking wine. I let her hold my beer so she didn't feel left out :)

While we were in Munich we also decided to take a day trip to Salzburg in Austria. It was a cute little town but that was about it. We didn't really know what to do so we followed the river to the old part of town and just walked around there for a bit. We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant there. It was nice to have something besides tradition German food which was all we had been getting in Munich. I don't know how many Wursts were eaten between the 3 of us but I can imagine that the numbers were staggering.

This is the view of Salzburg. This was the first time I had seen a mountain in almost 5 months. Crazy to think that Back home I see mountains all the time.

We took the train back from Salzburg after exploring the city for a bit. It was a fairly short ride back to Munich, at least compared to the trip we would be taking from Munich to Dusseldorf the next day.

We woke up in the morning and got on the train. It was about a 5 and a half hour train ride back to Dusseldorf. I didn't think that I would be able to sit down about for weeks after that train ride. But clearly I am sitting here writing to you now so it couldn't have been all that bad.

After we were back in Dusseldorf mom and dad still had a few more days left. I didn't get to see them much on Monday, and on Tuesday I needed to babysit all day because Susanne had taken Cecilia and Maximilian to Frankfurt for the day. I needed to stay home and watch after Carlotta. It is alot easier watching after just one of the kids at a time I have realized. I actually am starting to like each of them alot one on one. It is nice when they don't have one of their siblings around to start a fight with them.

I was pretty bummed on Tuesday because I wasn't able to see mom and dad at all. After Susanne got home with the other two she had to head right back out to her parenting class. I was also meant to work all day Wednesday and babysit that night but that was Mom and Dad's last night in Dusseldorf and I really wanted to spend some time with them. Susanne was a little cross with me when I first told her that I would like to at least spend the evening with my parents but after a while she realized that I wasn't going to see them again for quite some time. She was nice enough to give me the entire day free actually.

Mom, Dad, and I decided to go to Aachen. This is an old city not to far away from Dusseldorf that has a famous church in it. The church was the most beautiful one I ahd ever seen. I don't have any pictures of the inside because you were supposed to pay and we didn't know for sure who to pay. So I have some pictures of the city and of the outside of the church. This was a nice little town. I wouldn't mind going back actually.

This is what the church looks like whole. It was impossible for me to get a picture of all of it so below are pictures of it in pieces.