Faschings, Fassenacht, Karneval!!

Carnival is underway and Mainz is like the capital of Carnival (along with Cologne). It goes back to the french occupation of Mainz under the rule of Napoleon. It's all about criticising social and political injustices... by getting really drunk and dressing up in costumes apparently. Actually many costumes mock the the french uniforms of the past. Monday is the biggest day of Carnival; it's called "Rosenmontag" and there's a huge parade through the city and the streets are packed with like 500,000 people. I haven't decided if I'm going to go watch the parade first hand because I'm not a big fan of really really big crowds but we'll see.

Gestern Abend gab es ein Fassenacht party in meinen Wohnheim. Hier sind manche Fotos:
Ich, und meine guten Freunde Dennis, Nadine, und Rene

Zufällige Teufels:

Ein Freund von mir, Peter. Ein sehr nett Typ auf jeden Fall.

Mein Nachbar Andreas und ein Freund von ihm.

Dennis tanzend mit einer Teufelin


Am Freitag fliege ich nach Venedig (Venice)... freut mich sehr darauf. Und dann später im März werde ich nach Wien (Vienna) und Prag (Prague) reisen.

Übrigens, habe ich gerade das Ergebnis das Kansas gegen Texas Spiel gesehen.... Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, was ist denn loss mit ihnen. Ich bin einfach total enttäuscht. Warum muß Sie mich so verletzte!

ready for spring

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in quite awhile. The truth is I haven't had much to report. It's been so cold here that I've left campus only about 3 or 4 times since I've been back. I've simply gone to class and the mensa and that's about it. I haven't done any traveling. The semester is about over and last friday I had my big german exam... 3 hours! For the most part it was easy with the exception of the listening section. It was so frustrating because I understood everything but the directions were a bit confusing and it was unclear what information we were supposed to write down. Plus we didn't have enough time. But the rest was a piece of cake so I'm not worried. As far as my philosophy lectures, I'm finally getting to a point where I can follow what's going on but philosophy is so complicated that I probably only get about 40% of the lectures; but at least I'm not in a complete fog anymore. Anyway, it is warming up a bit and spring is right around the corner. We have some time off between the semesters so I will definately do some traveling. I'm for sure going to Venice and Vienna but beyond that I'm not sure. On a completely different topic, although most of the music here is american and british, I have discovered some good german bands... Wir sind Helden, Die Toten Hosen, Die Ärzte, und this really cool rap group called Rödelheim Hartreim Projekt. I also bought season 6 of Buffy in german. Although when I started watching it I realized that it's really hard to translate since the writers often make up words and use lots of play on words. As a result the german translation is often really confusing. Nevertheless it's pretty cool. Anyway I will try and be better about posting from now on. Here's a pic of some of my friends and I enjoying a fun night out the other weekend.

Tschüss... and go KU!