Fasnacht

One more quintessential Swiss experience.  Yay for having something to write about other than staying home and watching the snow fall :)
   What IS Fasnacht?  You know Mardi Gras and Carneval, right?  This is the Swiss version. Which means there are WAAAY more clothes involved, and from what I saw (which was all in the daytime) less debauchery in general.  True to Swiss form, every little town and region does Fasnacht a little different, maybe on different days, so I can only comment the St. Gallen festival.
    Essential ingredients for Fasnacht:
     Face paint: you might just be painting extra freckles on your face, but there needs to be something (we failed on this one).  Many faces were much more elaborate- airbrushed on, for sure. I suspect for some, a little touch of face paint was to make up for a lack of another essential-
      Costume:  this is the time of year when the stores fill with costumes.  The big difference I noticed with the costumes from the U.S. is the lack of specific characters here. Much more likely to see cowboys, princesses (but not Disney), knights, clowns, pirates, or garden gnomes than superheroes or movie or tv characters.
    Confetti:  The streets are well padded with confetti, despite the sincere efforts of cleaning crews.  Who am I kidding? Of course it gets cleaned up! I think the snow made it more difficult, though.

check out the paint jobs

 and the costumes 

Apparently, there has been Fasnacht "events" leading up to the weekend throughout last week.  I think these were mostly things like gugges (marching bands) playing at one of several bandstands set up through out the old town area. I did a quick walk through last Thursday while waiting for a bus and caught a gugge playing. It was fun! a lot of drums- clap along and nod your head kind of music.  These bands are neat in that they are comprised of a variety of ages. I think they are based out of communities. Of course, there were also outdoor stands selling warm (mostly alcoholic) beverages and food vendors. What is winter in Switzerland without gluwein?  (don't worry, it's just mulled wine)
   Our first Fasnacht event was a kids party for the neighborhood. All the kids dress up, some of the adults, some dancing games and other little carnival type games.  Nothing too unique. Jackson dressed as Spider Man ( one of the few specific characters) and Jo was a fairy princess ballerina (she wore a tutu).

 Jack with a friend from Kindy.

   Our second Fasnacht event was the big parade through town on Sunday afternoon.  Sunday was a gorgeous, sunny day. And probably the coldest so far.  This did not stop or dampen the festivities.  We went to the local church at 11.  (There was a Fasnacht theme). And we went into town at noon and stayed outside until the parade was over and we made it to my brother's hotel room at 4.  That is a very long time to be out in 25 degree weather.

   The parade consisted of a lot of gugge, a few floats, a lot of confetti, a lot of people in costume, and a lot of confetti. There were confetti cannons, there were people in the parade throwing confetti and running up to parade watchers and shoving it down the backs of their collars, and most interestingly- parade watchers throwing confetti.  Henry was attacked three times by people in the parade. I read that not being in costume is an invitation to being confetti'd, and I suspect him being a young man looking like he is trying to avoid the confetti didn't actually help.

 It's really stuffed in there.

 Jackson dressed as a dragon this time (we borrowed a bag of costumes from the neighbors) and Johanna repeated her costume as a fairy princess ballerina (tutu). Grandma bought them each a confetti gun- shoots a small amount of confetti.  Interesting piece of info: It is only acceptable to throw a single color of confetti. Multi colored confetti suggests it was picked up off the street, which is considered bad form.  Possibly more because it "robbed" a confetti maker than because it was pick up off the street.

 This is a truck going backwards. That is some mad reverse skillz.

 Typical costume for people in the parade. A lot of witches and gnomes/ogres.

  The last Fasnacht event was really just for Jackson, he had a party at school.  They could wear costumes and bring their confetti guns (what?! guns at school?!) but only without the confetti.  This time he dressed as a pirate. Johanna stayed home, but dressed as a fairy princess ballerina (paraded around in a tutu).
  Eli also took a brief turn in the spidey mask.

I find this to be ridiculously cute.

 

School Holiday

Another week at home!  oof.  I think this is rougher on me than being in a different country- being "stuck" at home.  We were blessed with some warm weather, which makes it much easier for us to get out and about. 

We made it to snake park twice, once with a side trip to the Toy Library. We never did make it to the indoor play place.  I mostly wussed out on taking 3 kids on the train to a location I have never been to, nor completely sure of where it is. It did occur to me that those sorts of places are germ breeding grounds and I partly didn't want to risk getting the sickies, but mostly I chickened out on the idea.

  We did manage to do a few fun things at home.  How I didn't think of this sooner, I don't know, but it occurred to me to look at Pinterest for ideas for kid activities.  I did some searches and was rewarded with some fun, basic science experiments.  We played around with mixing acids and bases (baking soda and vinegar) and static electricity, and flotation. We worked on transferring substances (instant coffee grounds) with different spoons and using tongs (not on instant coffee grounds). We also made another Aunt Mickey recipe- a kind of play dough. Most of this was all in one day :)  On top of this we played plenty of hide and seek, simon says, duck duck goose, road rally (from Mickey Mouse clubhouse), we painted, and we did some baking, too. 

 Yes, we lick the spoons.

Mixing up flour dough for play.

Sunday, I lured Kenny away from the books for one last excursion.  We day tripped to Constance and spent a couple hours at Sea Life Konstanz! - an aquarium. They really take advantage of all the sea themed movies and tv shows.  The kids really enjoyed it, they were particularly fond of the penguins and pointing out all the Nemo's and Dory's.  And I think it really did all of us a lot of good to get out and be together.  It was also great that we left a snowy St. Gallen and arrived in a sunny Constance.

Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday and Kenny, despite not being a particularly big football fan, was really missing the "holiday."  Because of the time difference, if the Super Bowl were to be shown on tv here, at the same time as in the States, it would be on in the middle of the night.  I promised Kenny I would look for it while I was up nursing Eli and that I would wake him up if I found it.  I found it- with French play by play.  And it was only about a half hour delayed.  They didn't show any of the commercials so I wasn't as interested.  Kenny got out of bed and moved to the couch for the game.  He definitely fell asleep, but he says he would wake up and watch parts.  Not exactly, a Super Bowl party, but a taste of the American Way. We also had fondue for dinner- somehow bread and cheese seemed to be a close approximation to Super Bowl food.

Updates:
   Johanna has decided that underwear is more comfortable than a diaper so we are potty training again!  Maybe it will stick this time?  I can't say it is going great so far, but not too bad, either.  Enough successes, that I am willing to keep going. 
    Eli is 7 months and is not only pulling up to standing but letting go with one hand and pivoting. 
He's also eating more- very fond of yogurt and banana. Not as big a fan of avocado.  Not a lot of variety happening yet. He's sort of on a sleep/nap schedule, which is nice.
  Jackson can zip his coat by himself.  This may be completely appropriate for his age (or for a younger kid, I don't know) but it impressed me. Zippers require some serious fine motor skills.

Acclimation

    As I have chronicled, living in a foreign country is challenging – language, rules, cultural norms, but I noticed a shift in the early part of December, so four months in. That was the point when I think I was getting really adjusted. If we were planning on staying longer, that would have been the point I could have taken on language classes without feeling entirely overwhelmed. I could have made more concerted efforts in developing friendships for myself and the kids, I would have tried harder to really fit into the neighborhood. Before that it was very much survival. Since we arrived I have thought about surviving vs. thriving and how my goal has been to thrive. There have been many moments when I have stopped and thought to myself- “this is surviving” and many moments when I have thought “this is thriving.” But if the goal were to really live here long term, four months was my acclimating period.

    Now that it is February, and about 3 weeks past the writing of the first paragraph, I look back on what I just wrote and wonder how that would have worked out in that alternate universe in which we live in Switzerland. (For what reason, I don't know.) Because we have been sooo insulated- with illness and the weather and the school holiday- it has been us in our house and that's about it.  Being on the tail end of this adventure, I think I simply haven't seen the motivation to make more effort. Especially when the effort would have to come dominantly from me, as Kenny has been swamped with tests and a huge project. I hope I don't sound as though I am complaining - being home and isolated HAS been difficult at times, but also good.

   So we ARE on the tail end of this adventure- less than 2 weeks to go. And social plans are going in the calendar. I'm working on arranging for pre- school for the remainder of the year for Jackson.  We are certainly looking forward to our return to Illinois.  It is so pleasant, and comforting to be returning where we are known and where we know family and friends and even how to live- the cultural norms etc. So looking forward to seeing some of you soon!  (Really, would love to see all of you, but realize that may not be realistic.)