Debauchery

This week we saw: 

Some Creepy masks.

Germans, along with the rest of the world, don't hold back when it comes to celebrating Carnival, or Fasching, as it is know here. The pictures above where taken on Rosenmontag, the Monday before Lent. At least I think that is what it refers to.  I'm going to play the Jew card here and say I have no idea of the succession of days leading up to Lent. Is it Rosenmontag -- Fasching -- Lent???

 Oh how could I possibly forget that this day included a lot of THIS:

We stayed in town after classes that day and sampled the many food stands that had popped up. I'm not going to go into much detail here except to say that one too many Nutella crepes may have been consumed. Calories don't count when they are part of a Multi-Culti experience, RIGHT??????

So the big news around here is that I got myself an internship! I know Mom, you are about to hit the roof in how quickly I got this thing organized.  I will be working at a German-English Montessori Kindergarten. Basically, the people who work there speak either only German or only English to the kids. I will be speaking English, but lets keep that on the DL since I'm doing this for credit and I don't think the German profs would be so psyched about that aspect. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing there, save that for next week's blog post.
So what does this have to do with International Relations? you may be wondering. Absolutely nothing. As much as I (mostly) like my major, I decided I wanted a slightly different experience this time around, since I hear enough about politics what with the IR major and living near D.C. The internship is definitely going to pack my schedule, but I think it will be worth it and it looks like it will be a lot of fun.

On Friday, instead of the usual German routine, we went on a HIKE. You can add that to the record books MOM, your daughter went on a hike. I was a little stressed out since I had the internship interview scheduled right in the afternoon. So after the hike I ran back to IES and changed, hopped on the tram, and found the Kindergarten. The hike was great, though. Not to strenuous and lots of views.  I can see picnic hikes in our future up here once the weather is warmer.

We could not resist the see-saw

 

 

On Saturday we went on ANOTHER hike, where I finally wore the hiking boots that were lovingly gifted and collecting dust in my closet by my mom. On Saturday, IES took us to Engelberg, Switzerland, about three hours by bus. It was gorgeous! The views were pretty stunning:

I forgot my hat...

 

 

 

 

I think that wraps it up for this week, check back for more obligatory posts MOM, with an additional obligatory post shout-out to Virginia!