Lukasmarkt
Greetings!
I had a fun and exciting weekend. Saturday evening I traveled with my coworker Andreas to the Lukasmarkt in Mayen. Mayen is a small town in a region southwest of Bonn called the Eifel. First off, the Eifel is beautiful. The land is mountainous with cute little German towns scattered here and there. Andreas himself is from one such small town, and therefore speaks a dialect of German also called Eifel, which is particularly hard for me to understand. In fact it's far enough removed from "High German" that he jokes that German is a foreign language to him as well.
Side note: Thanks to the wonder that is the German Autobahn, I can now say that I have gone faster then 100 mph, but I won't say how much faster for fear of worrying my mother too much. :-)
We met up with some friends of Andreas's and continued on to Mayen. So I was sitting in a car with three people speaking Eifel when suddenly we came around a bend and below us was a gigantic ferris wheel and other carnival rides. So Lukasmarkt turned out to be like the Midway at the Iowa State Fair, but without all the scary people...and a lot more beer.Oh and one other big difference: it was held in a castle (a Burg) from the middle ages. There were quite a few rides, a lot of food, plenty of Bitburger stands, and A LOT of people. We waded through the hordes for a while trying not to get too cold, rode on a couple rides, and had a few beers. The carnival itself was very American-like, so the night was a fun mix between Germany and the US. And though I was totally lost in the dialect, I think it's cool that the language can vary so much over such small (by American standards) regions. It's a fun challenge, so I'm not complaining.
On Sunday I took Manuel (I think that's how his name is spelled) to Koeln. He's a new grad student from Chile and wanted to see the big city. We made a quick stop in the Dom but mostly wandered around pedestrian district next to the Dom. Nothing fancy. Just a nice quiet afternoon.
I have some pictures from Koeln that I will post as soon as I get them onto a computer with internet.
That's all I have for now. Gute Nacht!
I had a fun and exciting weekend. Saturday evening I traveled with my coworker Andreas to the Lukasmarkt in Mayen. Mayen is a small town in a region southwest of Bonn called the Eifel. First off, the Eifel is beautiful. The land is mountainous with cute little German towns scattered here and there. Andreas himself is from one such small town, and therefore speaks a dialect of German also called Eifel, which is particularly hard for me to understand. In fact it's far enough removed from "High German" that he jokes that German is a foreign language to him as well.
Side note: Thanks to the wonder that is the German Autobahn, I can now say that I have gone faster then 100 mph, but I won't say how much faster for fear of worrying my mother too much. :-)
We met up with some friends of Andreas's and continued on to Mayen. So I was sitting in a car with three people speaking Eifel when suddenly we came around a bend and below us was a gigantic ferris wheel and other carnival rides. So Lukasmarkt turned out to be like the Midway at the Iowa State Fair, but without all the scary people...and a lot more beer.Oh and one other big difference: it was held in a castle (a Burg) from the middle ages. There were quite a few rides, a lot of food, plenty of Bitburger stands, and A LOT of people. We waded through the hordes for a while trying not to get too cold, rode on a couple rides, and had a few beers. The carnival itself was very American-like, so the night was a fun mix between Germany and the US. And though I was totally lost in the dialect, I think it's cool that the language can vary so much over such small (by American standards) regions. It's a fun challenge, so I'm not complaining.
On Sunday I took Manuel (I think that's how his name is spelled) to Koeln. He's a new grad student from Chile and wanted to see the big city. We made a quick stop in the Dom but mostly wandered around pedestrian district next to the Dom. Nothing fancy. Just a nice quiet afternoon.
I have some pictures from Koeln that I will post as soon as I get them onto a computer with internet.
That's all I have for now. Gute Nacht!
posted by laura s at 12:09 AM
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