Confessions of a Travelling Clutz: Fasching fasching fasching!

So just recently, we celebrated Fasching. This was the second time we were present in Munich for this event. In case you didn't see last years coverage of this event, I will recap. Fasching is the party season in the lead up to Lent. For about 6 weeks prior to Lent, everyone attends wild parties in fancy dress, and eats as many sweets as possible. Particularly Krapfen (donuts). But these aren't just regular donuts. These are delicious filled donuts with special toppings on the top too.

This year I became a little more adventurous, straying away from the typical jam filled, powdered sugar top type, and tried some more unique flavours. Including my very first Prosecco Krapfen. Yes, it tasted like a glass of prosecco. You could taste the bubbles!

But enough of my drooling. What is more important during Fasching than the Krapfen, is actually what I get up to at work. My company gets right into this party season, and months before Fasching itself, we were already planning. This year our Faschings party was to be celebrated on February 12. Between a very busy work schedule, I still managed to help plan an awesome party with my colleagues.

This year, we made the decision to copy the format that we had used for Halloween, and that was to have the students participate in rotations, thus not running uncontrollably up and down hallways! But each group had the chance to choose their own theme. The themes in the other rooms were Circus, Fairy Tales and Knights/Princesses. Out of no where, the Tiger group decided we were going to turn our entire classroom into a Jungle. As one does!

And a Jungle, I did create! Somewhere between the beginning of February and the day of the party, my classroom slowly started transforming, with the appearance of large branches hanging from the ceiling. These were soon decorated with paper leaves and a jungle canopy started to form. On the Monday before the party, I crafted a large cardboard tree which was to be the centrepiece of the jungle room, and then on Wednesday, the day before the big event, I was lucky enough to be left alone inside my classroom to just let my brain run wild (this was a lucky coincidence as more than 3/4 of my class were out on their Ski Course and there were hardly any kids left at school that day).

So, to give a little more info before I reveal the pictures, I created a waterfall coming from our upstairs quiet corner, a vine filled entry way for people to thrash through, some stepping stones across the river to avoid the nasty crocodile in the river, and a crawl through cave. Oh, and I dressed up as a parrot from the jungle!

The children came in one group at a time, each child with a pair of binoculars. They had to follow my colleague Annina on a wander through the jungle, through the vines, looking for animals, across the stepping stones in the river, avoiding the croc, then through the cave. They had to then sit in a jungle clearing and answer some clever jungle questions, each correct answer earning them a river stone. Once they had collected enough river stones, two students took the stones to a special cave being guarded by a tiger and elephant. Offering of stones accepted, the chosen children could crawl into the cave to find the treasure chest and share the hidden goodies with their class.

So clearly I had a lot of fun preparing and seeing this day through. Even better was the clean up the next week. Because I heard some of the best Denglish I have ever heard. A child asked me if they could play upstairs to which I said, 'Yes, but please don't touch the waterfall...'. Before I could explain why, one of my students decided to translate for me into German. Which came out as a very funny mixture "Bitte der Wasserfalle nicht touchen!"

Trust me, 'touchen' is not a German word!

But two days after our school celebrations, it happened to be the biggest weekend of Fasching, and a large group of us were very determined to go to one of the big parties. Sadly, the closer to the day we got, the less desire some of us had, and then we decided last minute not to bother even trying to get tickets (they had to be purchased just hours before the party). So we came up with an alternate plan. Party at Shauna's house!

So instead, that night, at 8pm, we all rocked up to Shauna's house in full costume, ready for a good night, inclusive of Krapfen! I chose a different outfit this time, but as it had been so last minute, I was very lucky that I happened to have mine in the cupboard. Michael was also able to pull his costume together at the last minute.

I will leave the photos to explain the awesome night that we had!