"Everyone's going to tell me I'm so beautiful!"

Throwing some witchy shapes

Im Shrank, not wanting to go home

It was Karnival day today at Kita to celebrate Fasching. Orla has been super excited by this for about a week. And for once Hamish actually wanted to go to Kita. But I think he thought we were all going to party together. His first disappointment was that I didn't get dressed up as a tiger or a baby jaguar this morning, and his second was when he found out our contribution to the buffet was to be 3 jars of olives, and not three massive bags of Smarties.

Orla was over the moon to be heading out into the streets of Berlin dressed as a witch. I was totally behind her when she exclaimed joyously "Everyone's going to tell me I'm so beautiful!". Indeed they are, my love, and then they're probably going to ask why you've not got any 'Handschuhe' on seeing as it's still a bit parky out.

Hamish decided that he would fox everybody and go as Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden. It was that or a spider, and I think it's just as well the spider costume didn't win as it's both completely synthetic and padded thus making for a super-sweaty Hamish - though perhaps better for the German weather outdoors.

Only one boy from Guana knew who Hamish was. The teacher asked Hamish to sit on her knee and tell her all about his costume. But I doubt even I could describe what happens in In The Night Garden in German especially that whole weird thing they have going on with the scale of everything.

Anyway, they both had loads of fun and when I came to collect them they locked themselves "im Shrank" because they wanted to stay longer. The most successful day at Kita I think we've had, I'd say! If only every day could be a party.

The Mysterious Fasching Carnival

Today was a beautiful day! Gorgeous blue skies, though you can't really tell that from the photos. And maybe (?) a little milder than it has been. We decided to go to the zoo (you know, just for a change. I've only been 3 times this winter alone). But, on our way there we bumped into the 'Fasching' near Zoo Station.

I've been wondering about the Fasching for a few weeks. There have been felt-tipped posters up in Kita (my main source of information regarding the festivals and traditions of Germany) saying that the kids need to come dressed up for the Fasching in March. I couldn't tell from the little badly cut out pictures of people dressed up what the theme was, so I asked. Only to be told there's no theme. You can dress up as anything.

So was does the Fasching celebrate? Not many people seem to know. The people at Kita couldn't tell me, and anyone else I have asked was a bit vague. And certainly going to the thing won't help you work it out. So I looked it up when we got home today. Apparently it's a carnival that starts on the 11th of November and lasts all the way until Shrove Tuesday. It is celebrated mostly in Catholic areas and is related to the Rio Carnival. There are celebrations on different days, but mostly things start gearing up around the end of February/ beginning of March.

There were a lot of people dressed up today in the crowd. And not even just the kids. A broad spectrum of age groups. There were pirates, prisoners, nuns, clowns, a family in purple wigs (wish I'd got their photo) and anything else you could imagine. The streets were mobbed with people waiting for the float procession. We decided to wait for a bit and see what would happen.

What happened was a whole load of floats went by filled with people singing or playing music, who threw handfuls of sweets and chocolate out to the crowds. Some people came prepared and brought umbrellas which they held upturned to catch the loot. This also served a double purpose in stopping them from getting hurt by the millions of boiled sweets raining down on us.

I have never seen anything like it. Everyone was scrabbling around trying to pick up every sweetie that landed on the ground. It was frantic. People were even grabbing at the same sweets as kids and even if the kid touched it first, if the adult got a better grip, they nabbed it off the kid. Despite this, it was outrageously good fun. The kids loved it, and were totally over the moon if they either managed to catch something by themselves or pounced on a 'premium prize' like a little Chuppa Chup lolly. Our haul consisted of around about 20 pieces of Lindt dark chocolate, some peanut flavour crisps (utterly disgusting) and approx. 200 boiled sweets. At one stage they were throwing packaged oven gloves from an open top bus. The only thing that stopped me wrestling that off the girl next to me was the fact that it wasn't Cath Kidston.

After our delayed visit to the zoo, we met the Fasching as it was winding down. Orla managed to get a whole bunch of balloons and that made her day. We had a fantastic time, and next year we'll be back with our brollies and our sharpened elbows!