Month: February 2008

So we went to our 1st KinderFasnacht Umzug – Kids Fasnacht Parade.

1st a tiny bit of info about Fasnacht – it is carnival season all over Europe – but i think it is biggest in German-speaking countries/areas. So people get dressed up in outlandish costumes & join parades & play Guggemusic (basically ordinary people getting together to form a band – they take their Guggemusic very seriously!) Why? Well, some say it’s to break from the long winter (or what used to be a cold long winter). Most say it’s traditionally the big celebration before the fasting season of Lent – sort of a finally big bang before we get serious & solemn. Whatever the real reason, it is a time for big colourful parties with lots of noise & drinking & eating. The Swiss seriously let their hair down & party till the wee hours & simply go crazy 😉 The normally serious, quiet & peace-loving people of Switzerland do have another side – hahahhaa 😉

i couldn’t find a website with general info on this celebration & each big city has it’s own celebration at slightly different times & most sites are in German – i found only 1x in English – it is said that the one in Basel is the biggest & the best in the country – so check it out.

Now back to our KinderFasnacht Umzug – we didn’t go to the one in our city of Solothurn – we missed it. So we went to the one in Bern today with a friend & her little gal. The kids were a little overwhelmed at 1st by the sheer number of people in strange outfits & loud funny music – but they warmed up & had a nice time.

Here’s a couple of photos (of cos we dressed the kids up – that’s part of the fun):
Here’s Tobias the Airplane & Cera the Bee:
(Tobias’s costume is home-made!)

Here’s one of me with the 2x of them:

Here’s an example of the wonderful costumes (most are home-made!):

Here’s a couple showing off the face-painting (done by mummy – hehhehe) on Tobias:

It was a fun day even in the midst of trying to get everything done before we fly off on Tuesday to Singapore.
syc

So after posting the last one about snowfall, i had thot that was it – that’s all the snowfall we are going to see this season – at least at 450m, which is how high (or low) we live at.
But surprise Surprise! i had just come up from loading the washing downstairs & about to start cleaning when i looked up & saw that it was snowing! It went on quite steadily for about an hour & then keep on falling lightly till just before lunch. & this time it stayed! at least for a whole day!
So we may yet see more snowfall before we shoot off to Singapore 😉
syc

Finally it snowed yesterday – we were about to start breakfast when i noticed it was snowing! & quite heavily too! But it was for about half hour or a little bit more – & then it didn’t stay. But at least it snowed long enough to cover the ground 😉
Oh, the 1st snowfall was way back in November – which also marked the earliest snowfall ever.
syc