Karneval

Welcome to Germany where I managed to mix a bit of business and pleasure back in Feb. The pleasure was in Wallerfangen where I was able to go to the last night of Carnival, a night of ba-doom tish "humourous" skits and schlager songs with actions for the audience and lots of arm-in-arm swaying...

The origins lie somewhere around Köln, considered the home of Carnival, who were represented here by a travelling trio of Kings and Queens

Some costumes were very inventive - I don't want to see what comes out of the spout!

Ralf and Jorg on stage singing and dancing. They really didn't want to be there, but being related to the President of the Carnival organisation (Christina's mum behind the white shirted dance leader) got caled into duty. There's somethign about 11's in Carnival - it starts on the 11th of the 11th, and there are 11 men on stage.

Christina's dance group with C in the middle

After shelling out extra for snow tyres I finally had use for them on my last day when I had a 5 hr drive back to the airport. There was chaos on the roads, the motorway was blocked, and I didn't have enough time to change plans, return the car where I was and go by train. It was hair raising at first having never driven on falling slushy snow (in Sweden it was all hard packed the few times I drove). There was much slipping and sliding, and I needed a push up hills twice, but I got there in the end and all was well. No 200km/hr autobahn driving that day though.