Faschingsfeier

 

Everyone knows about scraping ice off the outside of the car windows in the morning, but no-one told us about having to scrape it off the inside!  The shape of the scraper is designed for the curvature of the glass on the outside, so having to remove ice from the inside of the windscreen is a particularly difficult task, one that I happily leave to Maciek!  It causes a miniature snowstorm inside the car, and a wet bum, as it turns to water quickly after settling on your seat.  For weeks we couldn’t figure out why this was happening.  But now we know apparently it happens because of the moisture inside the car, like if you leave your ski’s and boots etc inside the car overnight with snow on them.  One thing I can leave in the car though is the food shopping, which is a definite no-no at home.  Couple of hours is fine.  Frozen items remain frozen and items that aren’t begin to freeze also! 

Having said that it’s beginning to warm up.  It’s been around 10 degrees some days.  Woohoo, t-shirts and shorts weather!  It’s amazing how warm it does feel after experiencing – 20’s.  The snow is beginning to melt too, and it sounds like it’s raining all the time as the snow is melting into the gutters and running onto the ground.  We can see patches of grass and bits of fence starting to make and appearance and it might sound funny but after everything being covered in so much snow for so long it’s really weird to see it.  The walls of ice are melting too, and driving around we can point things out that we haven’t seen for months, like the farmhouse, and the phone box, having been hidden behind the ice wall and not visible from the road. 

What we know as Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent, is called here Faschingsfeier (Amelia thought it was Fashions Day due to the talk about dress ups).  It’s a big carnival day, where everyone gets really dressed up in all sorts of funny outfits, and eat jam dohnuts, called Krapfen.   When I say dressed up, I don’t just mean a funny hat and face paint, they really go all out.  We saw court jesters, medieval folk, smurfs, bumble bees, action hero’s, mythical creatures.  It was a special day at school, people talked about it for weeks, what they were dressing up as.  I felt under huge pressure, not having any old bits a pieces lying around in a wardrobe you hadn’t cleaned out for yonks, like you normally would.  But I did manage to throw something together using bits from Amelia’s small collection of dress ups, make up, hair lackies with big flowers on them, and a stupid skirt made from pink curling ribbon!  People were confused as to whether I was a fairy, or a butterfly, a Fruhlings Frau (Spring Lady!), a birthday present, or a mixture of all!  But at least I made an effort.  Amelia was Snow White, and Noah a Crocodile, and they had a special fun day at Kindergarten with a fashion show and a Magician.

And last but not least, Maciek’s days of a Lederhosen wearing non-German speaking waiter in an Austrian hotel are at an end.  Boo hoo and toodle oo!  No more on-the-house-wink-wink-nudge-nudge Milka chocolates that he nicked and stuffed in his jacket pockets on his way out at the end of his shift everyday!