Weiberfastnacht (Ladies' Night) which basically means that for the whole day in the city women run around (mostly trashed) and can get away with doing just about anything, unless it's really illegal. Some of them even carry scissors with them and cut ties and shoe laces off of any man they come across. I would not want to be a man in Köln on Weiberfastnacht.I didn't make it into the city at all yesterday. I spent the whole day celebrating with the family because it just didn't make sense to go out with all those people and come home really tired when I had to take care of Pauline all day. Plus, I wanted to be able to see all of the little kids in their costumes.
First Olaf, Pauline and I went to Gustav's Kindergarten for a little celebration they were having there from 10:30 until 11:11 (which is the official start of the Karneval celebration). All of the kids were wearing costumes
, and the women who work at the Kindergarten were wearing all of their 1.FC Köln gear, and they were singing along to Karneval music and dancing. Gustav was an Indian, Olaf was a sheik, Pauline was a princess and I was a pirate. Esther wasn't with us because she had some stuff she needed to do in her office, so we picked her up and took her home to put her costume on after the Kindergarten party. She wasn't anything in particular, but she was dolled up in Kölsch gear, which is perfectly acceptable in lieu of a costume.After Esther redecorated the kids' faces and got herself ready, we went to the restaurant at the fitness center just down the road for a party. There were quite a few people there, but Königsdorf is small so it wasn't out of control or anything. Jörg and Barbara were there with the boys, too, so that was fun. Little David was dressed up as a cowboy, and he was absolutely adorable. He was wandering around dancing all on his own. At one point I was holding him while he stood on a bar stool, dancing and eating french fries, and Esther and Barbara were watching us. Then Esther came over and asked me if I wanted to stay another year, because everybody likes having me around with the kids. She was joking, but at the same time they would like to be able to keep me around longer.
After the party we went back home and Jörg and the family joined us there. We had dinner together (bacon, eggs, and waffles) and listened to more Karneval music. It was a really easy-going day with a fun but mild celebration. I still haven't experienced any of the craziness that I've been warned about, but I still have 3 more days for that.
We've been having a bit of snow lately, too, which is extremely unusual for Karneval here. The other day it was weird because it wasn't so much that it was snowing, but more like the air was just freezing. It's like when it feels like it's drizzling outside but really it's just so foggy that the air is wet, only it was -2° so the air was frozen. Then on Wednesday the snow was so big and fluffy that it looked like the ground was covered in dandelions, or the stuff from cattails. I've never seen snow so light and fluffy before. Now today it's been snowing all day, and it's supposed to snow again tomorrow, but then it should get warmer next week. I think I'm the only one here that doesn't want it to get warmer or stop snowing.
The most important thing that happened this past week is that I officially became a legal temporary resident of Germany. Apparently not all of my paperwork got turned in when I first moved, and then it kind of got forgotten in the midst of Esther's move to her new office. So on Monday I drove to Bergheim to turn in the last of the paperwork and now I have an actual visa in my passport, so if anything happens I won't be deported.
The bad news from this week is that the ticket from when I missed my train stop back in November finally showed up. I figured that, since the guy said it would be showing up within a week, nothing ever came of it. He knew it was only one stop, and he wrote my info on a piece of paper instead of entering it in his little electronic thing, and I thought maybe he decided to be nice because the whole situation was just stupid. So now I get this thing in the mail, and they want me to pay 93 Euro!! It's a 40 Euro ticket, but they're saying that it's 2 months late and in collections, so now I have to pay all kinds of fees on hit. Wtf?! This is the first notice I've gotten about it, I know this for sure because I would have paid it. So now Esther is going to call them and try to figure out what's going on. I'm not a happy camper.
