Toten Hosen

This last week was a little slow, according to my title, which translates to dead pants, but really just means something is completely dead or lame. Anyway, last Saturday I helped out with Scouts because they were doing a giant scavenger hung throughout the city. It was medieval themed, and everyone got to dress up in neat costumes. There were bandits, friars, medical persons, a gambler, and more. I stayed in the "tavern" to help serve bread with honey, butter, or lard (yuck) and also tea. It was definitely fun times, and then at the end of the day there was a short church service and free dinner.

I had scouts again on Monday, and we did a mini scavenger hunt. The kids were as crazy as ever. Two kids wouldn't leave me or Emily alone. One little boy kept trying to tickle both of us, and one little girl kept playing with my hair. She would put it in front of my face so I couldn't see anything, but at other points she would just sit on my lap peacefully listening to Gertrud and Jan, the leaders of the group. (The pictures are actually from two weeks ago. They were building little models that week.)

Whittling for the model. Don't worry, she knows what she's doing.

On Thursday, we finally got our visas. A group of us went to the Stadtbüro or city hall to get them. It reminded me a little bit of the DMV, long wait in a building where nobody is too happy to be.

Friday night I went with Emily and Kelsey to the local Taizé gathering. It is a gathering of Christians to sing and pray and meditate. We all sat on these short stools, only a few inches from the ground. We sang many songs for an hour, in Latin, German, English, and French. Taizé  is very popular here in Europe. It started in France in 1940. It was very relaxing and comforting. Afterwards we all drank tea and ate some snacks.

Later that night a group of us went out dancing. It was a little awkward though because we were pretty much the only people there. All of the German students have their semester break right now for six weeks, but we didn't think about that before we got there. We still had quite a bit of fun though.

Then last night, in Niederweimar, a town over from Marburg, they were having a salsa party for Karneval. We took the train there, and after about twenty minutes of walking, we found the little building. It was very cute inside, and in the summertime you can actually rent waterskis and jet skis because it's right on the lake. We'll probably go back in May if it's not too cold. Anyway though, it was a fun night of salsa dancing with the girls. I forgot my camera unfortunately. Everybody was wearing costumes, and they were pretty impressive. One lady painted herself black even to go with the theme.

And tomorrow is Rosenmontag, and I'll be headed to Mainz for the big parade, all for Karneval. It's about three hours long, and I'm very excited because Aline's Karneval club will be in it. Everyone wears crazy costumes with lots of make-up. I'll be taking lots of pictures that I will most definitely be putting in my next blog post. Bis dann!