Fasching in Wiesbaden ... again ... and some hiking ... again

For the second year in a row, Kate and I decided to take the lazy route to Karneval this year and walk down our street until we got to Wiesbaden's main event in this "fifth season," as the German's like to call it: a Fasching parade.

Karneval, Fashing, Fastnacht, Fassenach, Mardi Gras - this ancient Pagan/Christian welcome to spring is called many things around the world. And here in Germany each town celebrates it a little differently, each with their own "local" emphasis. In Munich they have doughnuts everywhere, for instance. In Cologne they have a famous processional called the "Zoch." Here they just yell "Helau!" (hello) and get dressed up in clown outfits.

I called ourselves lazy because, although we could see masks, dancing, and parades anywhere, apparently the New Orleans equivalent of German Fasching parades are in Cologne (about an hour away) and in Mainz (about 15 minutes away). Plus, there's always the wine region parades in the small towns near us, where instead of showering candy upon parade watchers, each float fills up your cup with local wine. But no. We're lazy. And we thought watching a marathon four-hour parade was work enough, thank you very much. Especially catching all that candy, shampoo, paper, bath gel, and, uh, window sill sitter trinkets.

As you can see, at least we dressed up.

Kate deemed our Arab outfits as semi-offensive. I said semi-offensive would be to have drawn unibrows on both of us. Offensive would have involved wires sticking out of my shirt and a high-pitched la-la-la-la-la.

Also, Kate and I went on a hike in the woods near us last weekend and took lots of pictures of Pecos trouncing in the mud and climbing altitudinally-gifted rocks.

And then getting scared.