Lei Lei!

I forgot to write the other night. We had Albanian food, the third of four total international food nights. So far, we've had Indian, Italian, Albanian, and next is American. My neighbor and I are still a little lost trying to figure out what to make. That's not important, though. What's important is what happened yesterday. In many Catholic areas of Europe, a pre-Lent festival called Carnival is coming to its end as we approach Fat Tuesday. In Austria, the festival is called Fasching. A neighboring village Villach has the largest Fasching celebration in Austria. The city is only 30 minutes away by train, so our class decided to take a field trip. Our professor lives in Villach, and he invited us to come celebrate with him. He's great, really great. I don't know what you guys know about Fasching (Carnival) because it's not well-known in America. I don't know if you can compare it to anything we have, either. The best description I can make is if you combine Halloween with the state fair, only Fasching is a lot bigger. Every person, old and young, wears a costume. I saw so many smurfs, pirates, elves, witches, Flinstones, and everything else. It was unbelievable to see the whole community participation. I mean, everybody was dressed up: babies, teenagers, parents, grandparents. Much better than Halloween. In Villach, the main celebration is Faschingsamstag. It happens on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday. There are local vendors setup throughout the city, decorations stringing from building to building, a large musical parade, and it all culminates with every person partying together at the end. I've never seen such a thing before. The entire city, every building, every person, everything was celebrating Fasching. Some of us students met in the morning to walk to the train station together. Our professor was going to pick us up from the station in Villach. I didn't get the memo about dressing up, so I went as myself, unfortunately, because every other person in the city was wearing at last a mask. We got to Villach, and our professor took us first to a little cafe overlooking the river and bridge where the parade would be happening. It was wonderful to finally have some good coffee. I've been without coffee now since Germany, and I didn't realize how much I missed it until I had a real cup yesterday at the cafe. Then we found a spot to view the parade outside on the street.

The parade was filled with different groups and bands, everybody dressed up. It lasted a couple hours, and then the party began. The parade ended, and the people flooded the streets. Music came from what seemed like the sky. Some students and I, along with our professor, found our way to a little Irish pub that was packed full of Ghostbusters, pirates, and stone-aged men. After the pub, we heard about a large dance party happening in front of city hall, so, of course, we went. We walked through one of the squares, rounded a building, and rested our eyes upon the largest group of people dancing I'd ever seen. Christmas lights lit the entire square, along with flashing lights from the music stage.

Austrian, German, Spanish, and American songs were played the entire night, and nobody stopped dancing. It was for real the largest dance party I've ever been a part of. Several hours of dancing wore us foreigners out, so we decided to head home. It was only 10 pm, but it felt so much later. We rode the train back to Klagenfurt, walked home from the train station, and passed out from exhaustion. It was a wonderful day. So many costumes, so much community, so much dancing, so many smiles. It was the best day I've had so far in Austria, and one of the craziest days of my life.

Today was a little quieter. As I've said, Klagenfurt shuts down on Sundays. I woke up this morning and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. To my surprise, my neighbors were in there making something similar to funnel cakes. Evidently, the tasty treats are an Italian Carnival tradition. Funnel cakes are so much better than yogurt for breakfast. Try it sometime. This afternoon, we found out that there is a skating rink in the city center that has public skates on Sunday. I thought everything was closed, but I guess I was wrong. One grocery store, one kebap shop, and the skating rink are open. The only problem is, they are a long ways away from campus. We walked 40 minutes to the rink, skated for awhile, then came back. Now, I sit in my room, tired, hungry, but satisfied with a great weekend in Austria.