Fasching in Germany

I witnessed last year a Fasching or Carnival in Dietfurt, a small village in Neumarkt, Germany. It was really lot of fun seeing people with different masks and customes. I'm just sad that I cannot witness it again this year as my husband can't go with me and I don't want to drive alone there since I also don't know the way. Here are some photos I took last year. Some photos can also be found here.

















What is it?

Carnival season is a time of wild fancy-dress parties and costume-balls, which are open to the public. Carnival reaches its climax in big street processions with elaborately decorated floats, usually on Rosenmontag. Carnival celebrations happen mainly in the Catholic parts of Germany. Nevertheless, Karneval parties do occur in some places in the north of Germany.

When is it?

Officially it starts am elften elften elf Uhr elf (11th November at 11:11am) and continues in a fairly low-key way for about three months before the Tolle Tage (Crazy Days) which climax on Rosenmontag, the 42nd day before Easter. Carnival season is traditionally seen as a chance for people to go wild and let their hair down before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. In the Christian church Lent is a serious time before Easter for fasting (eating no food or very little food) and making up for your sins and mistakes.

Why the different names for it?

Carnival is a regional festival and is celebrated in different ways according to different local traditions. It’s known as:

Karneval in the Rheinland area;
Fastnacht around the city of Mainz ('fasting night', or eve of Lent, the period of fasting);
Fasnet in Swabia (south-west region of Germany) and in the south-west of the state of Bavaria;
Fosnat in the Franken region (northern Bavaria), and as
Fasching around the city of München and in Austria.

What do people do?

Carnivals are held in southern German cities, and in the Rheinland cities of Mainz, Aachen, Bonn and Düsseldorf. The biggest and zaniest Karneval is in Köln. The first written record of the Köln carnival is from the year 1341. Köln has the Dreigestirn (three Stars): the Carnival Prince (known as Seine Tollität, ‘His Craziness’), the Bauer (peasant) and the Jungfrau (virgin). The Jungfrau has always been a man. It is a great honour to be a member of the Dreigestirn, and they are elected each October from the members of Köln’s 105 historic carnival associations.

The Köln carnival involves heaps of street-parties and pub-parties, with people disguising themselves in all sorts of ways. In fact, on Rosenmontag you stand out as unusual if you aren’t wearing some sort of mad costume or haven’t painted a clown-face on yourself. At the parades and costume-balls people are dressed as sheiks, Vikings (with hairy coats and horned helmets), Attila the Hun, clowns and harlequins, devils, witches, animals, or fruit, and in many other creative ways . Köln’s many Karneval associations put a lot of effort into building and decorating the floats for the Rosenmontag parade. As the floats pass by, the costumed people on board them pelt the street crowds with lollies and sweets while they sing the many old Karneval songs. The Mariechen, acrobatic dancing troupes of girls entertain the crowds as part of the parade. In the parade the Carnival Prince has a royal bodyguard who are dressed in uniforms of the early 1800s. The bodyguards remind the crowd of the city’s tradition of anti-militarism by disobeying orders (eg turning in the wrong direction) and by sticking flowers in their rifle-barrels. About 1.5 million people go to the Rosenmontag parade in Köln.

Weiberfastnacht (women’s carnival night) is the Thursday before Rosenmontag, and it is tradition that women are allowed to cut off the tie of any man within reach, and to kiss any man they want to. Women going out that night to pubs take scissors with them. Rosenmontag is not an official holiday but in areas of Germany that celebrate Karneval, workers usually get the day off. On Rosenmontag German television devotes a lot of time to Karneval am Rhein.

History

As described above, Karneval is associated with festivals of the Christian church (wild partying before Lent begins). However, it goes back to pagan times, and was a way of driving out the evil spirits of winter and encouraging the coming of spring and good crops. Ugly masks worn for this purpose are still worn in carnival festivals in southern Germany. Karneval can be traced back to pagan Roman festivals, which may explain why Köln and Mainz, two ancient cities with Roman history, have such big carnivals. In the Middle Ages, Karneval gave the people a break from the tightly structured class system, as they were able to hide their social background behind imaginative masks and costumes. Poor people were able to mix with all other levels of society and share fun with them. In those days people would dress up as knights, damsels and even priests, as a way of making fun of them. In a similar way, people these days sometimes wear masks which make fun of well-known politicians or celebrities.

A Very Important Lesson

Got this interesting story from my email..just want to share it with you peeps...
here it goes..

Three years ago, I adopted a purebred Sheltie from a rescue
shelter. His name was Buster. He had bad teeth and his fur
stuck out no matter what. I didn't care. He was my dog. He had
a few owners in his life, and I promised him that I would
never give him up, no matter what. Earlier this year, we found
out Buster had an enlarged heart. The vet gave him six to
eighteen months.

Buster was having seizures that were probably causing brain
damage. Last Friday night, he had a seizure and cracked his
head against the sofa. He couldn't walk after that. He kept
bumping into walls and experienced constant bowel movements and
vomiting. My dog was gone. Buster was no longer there. His body
was walking around, but that was all. I decided he needed to be
put to sleep.

He went to sleep on December 21, 2007, less than a month
before his ninth birthday. I feel his absence keenly. I
sincerely hope and pray dogs do get into heaven. After all,
D-O-G is G-O-D spelled backward.

Buster had no worries at all. He knew that I would feed him
and water him in a timely manner and that I would take care
of him no matter what. In return, he gave me his loyalty and
undying love.

He taught me a very important lesson:

This is what God wants from us.

I feel awed that such a simple creature could teach so
valuable a lesson with deeds and not words. I already loved
God with all my heart, without reservation, and followed him.
And now, I love God even more than I thought possible.

~A MountainWings Original by Michael Dowds, Peyton, Colorado~

Quote for Today

Great Men
==========

Great men are they who see
that the spiritual is stronger
than any material force.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Hohenfels, Germany

Some images from Hohenfels, a small town in Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germany. It is also home to the Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) of the United States Army.

Some sights to see are the castle ruins in Hohenfels and the beautiful St. Ullrich Church. Hohenfels is a small but beautiful town where you can experience lovely nature around. Here are some images from Hohenfels.

view of St. Ullrich Church from the Schlossberg hill, where the castle ruins are found.

see that small chapel afar, that's the Station of the Cross Chapel

the castle Turm or tower. down the Schlossberg are lots of house. some are even hundred years old already.

zoom view of the Station of the Cross Chapel

that's Schlossberg Turm (tower)

The Right Ecommerce Software for my Brother- in-Law

My brother-in-law in Las Vegas, Nevada have been searching for a website where he can advertise his business. He even asked me to help him search for a very good and reliable website where he can put his own site on the web and attract more customers especially through online shopping.

Nowadays, a lot of busy people do shopping or searching for some products and services in there home through internet. It happened that I was surfing in the net at that time that my sister mentioned to me again about ecommerce software where his husband can make an online business.

I happened to browse Ashop Commerce which is leading provider of hosted shopping cart software.

As I was reading further about it, I really find it very reliable.It help merchants climb to the top of the search engines because it is 100% Search Engine Optimized which can help merchants very searchable through the internet.

Ashop Commerce is a shopping cart software which provides a turn-key ecommerce solution with it's revolutionary online store building software. One of the worlds most easy to use web based administrations with award winning features allows the merchant to build an online store capable of competing with the webs most powerful sites for a simple, low monthly fee.

My brother-in-law can then start a business online through Ashop shopping cart software with no big worry and hassle. Ashop also accepts credit cards as payments and it is also integrated with all major banks, gateways and third party processors like Paypal. There is no worry using credit cards with Ashop since it has a built in SSL protection or a checkout security which makes customers pay with confidence.

Friendly site award from Lily

Thanks a lot Lily for passing me this friendly site award...I'm tagging Carlota, Joy, Lyn, Lolli, all bisdak family and all friends blogger you can grab this but pls don't forget to add my URL...

To all my friends blogger, I might visit you one by one next time if given the chance...sorry my linker is temporary out as of this moment..will try to find another linker so that I can link you up..


I want to say thank you to all my friends online for keeping me company in this blogging world. All the time, your tags and comments are very much appreciated. I will do my bloghopping later when I get a chance. take care everyone and enjoy the beautiful weekend.
God bless us all!!!

To All my Friends!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my friends out there. I might not visit you one by one but if given the chance to do so, it would then be a great pleasure for me. Again thank you very much especially for the special friendship we have.. Those are really very great treasure that I can keep and can never be stolen.

I also would like to especially thank a new friend named Carlota whom I met here in the web. Although we still don't see each other in person, but I believed she is a very unique and great person. Thanks a lot for the teachings. I really appreciated everything from the bottom of my heart.

TO ALL MY FRIENDS...MORE POWER TO ALL OF US...GOD BLESS US ALL IN THIS YEAR 2008 AND ALL YEARS TO COME...I wish you all a great Sunday!!!