Diane’s World

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you the most bizarre things I have ever seen.Germans, who are usually over-serious… and basically the opposite of “jolly”… get together for a whole week to as one nation, to drink beer and eat candy.No I’m not kidding.Here is day 1 of the Karneval for you:

what a crazy town… almost everybody is drinking beer - quite a few people are singing German songs, and music is being blasted from multiple directions. Everybody is dressed up to some extent:

IN the goethe-institut, we had our own little party before heading on to the streets. We were taught how to dance the “the Karneval song” - which was rather entertaining.

And most of my friends and I were in costume.

Here is Nikos and Sam:

Bayo Olupohunda and I:

Hamid and Andréa

(She is pretending to cut his tie… the reason for this, is the first day of Karneval is women’s day… and if any men wear a tie, the women are allowed to chop it in half. So they sell cheap ties as souvenirs… )

I got to cut a few myself!

Two devils and a Minney Mouse!

There was a lot of dancing, singing and drinking that day - it was absolutely crazy!

The following saturday, we headed to Köln. Unfortunately, both the Ludwig museum and the dom were closed because of Karneval,but we plan to go again next Thursday. So we walked around, exploring the city instead.

(Next picture is Hamid, Nikos, Phillip (from the USA) and Hamid’s cousin)

It was a very nice day… kind of cold and windy though!

The next Monday was RosenMontag -the biggest day of Karneval. WE didn’t have any school -and there was a HUGE mardis-gras like parade in the Altstadt.

However, my camera batteries died very early in the day (lesson is learned - charge the dang thing before important events!) and I have yet to steal pictures from my friend Beyo. So you don’t get to see RosenMontag.

However, it was cold, rainy, and I spent most of the day with my Indian friend, Bahwna. (I spelled that wrong probably.)

Here is Bahwna and a Döner

The parade was fun - whenever a float came by, you would yell “HELAU!” and they will throw candy, flowers, and balls at you. It was absolutely hilarious! Somewhat dangerous with all the candy flying everywhere!

On Wednesday, we went to an art museum called K20/K21. I was expecting for it to be artist I never knew of… but it ended up being soo soo much more!

I saw works by: Picasso, Dubuffet, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Stella, Dichiciro, Margritte, Matisse, Klee, Miró, Pollock, Lewitt, Beuys, Schwitters, Kandinsky, Albers, Lichenstein, Yves Klein, Dalí, Ernst (and believe me, I could continue for a very long time)

I knew almost every single artist in this exhibit - it was absolutely amazing!

Anyways, that is all I have for this week. My anemia is back and kicking I think (I have no idea when the last time I ate beef was!) - naps have become an extremely imporant ritual for me in the past few days. I am on a search to find steak tomorrow I think. And maybe some iron pills. I don’t know.

I’ve been painting as well. Here are the ones I don’t think i’ve shown yet:

Hyo-Kyung: (named after the sweetest Korean girl in my class. I absolutely enjoy working with her)

And Aqua zoo:

Today I made my first full-size painting (11″x8.5)

It’s called “Fun-sucking Anemia”. I made it for therapeutic reasons. And it worked quite nicely. I used a whole tube of white paint on it.

Anyways, my happy wall is getting huge. I bought a really cheap poster (1 euro 25 cents!!! ) from the art museum yesterday - a print by Rauschenberg that I found especially impressive

Ok well I think that is all I have for now.