"LOOK! there he is!!!"

I think I said that 10-1000 times on 11-11, known here as St. Martins Day.

Lemme quickly explain to nonEuros that St. Martins day is their religious form of Halloween. It is celebrated on the eve of November 11. Children make or buy lanterns that they carry around. Typically they knock on the doors of neighbors sing a song and get candy. However, since we live at the ass of the world- nobody comes. So we went to Himi´s kindergarten to celebrate. First they had a puppenspiel- a shadow puppet show which told the story of St. Martin. Which is about a man who was riding his horse and came along a man in the cold so he torn his cape? cloak? what ever they wore back then, in two and gave the man half of it. Well this granted him to become a saint.

After the shadow puppet show we all took a walk through the forest with the lanterns lit and singing songs. (side note- it gives me a lot of anxiety to entrust a 3 year old with fire... especially nearly 100 of them!) As we were walking through the forest it was very dark and occasionally in the distance you could see the outlining of a man on the horse or hear the horse´s noise. Somehow I was the only one who managed to see him coming... so I was constantly having to point him out to everyone. It was really funny how much the kids got into it!

As we made our way out of the forest into the empty parking lot men had made a huge bonfire and the children sat on logs around it- still singing songs. As the songs were sung? sang? the teachers handed out Weckmann- this bread shaped like a man with a pipe.

Traditionally the children are supposed to only get one Weckmann and break it in half sharing it with a friend. Sadly, the point of the story was lost- and I only saw one child share his Weckmann. I even probed Himi and asked for just a small piece of his leg... she bratfully yelled "NO!" to me!

these pictures are stolen and I don´t know who these kids are... but they show the laterns and a weckmann