Well, that snuck up on us. I had no idea this was even a thing over here, but apparently people take Mardi Gras pretty seriously in Austria. Mary Jo and I were both swamped with work last night, so we didn’t go out. It was a bit of a bummer, but she had to get papers corrected and I had to compile a list of common business abbreviations for the course I’m teaching.
Remember how we were kind of surprised that Halloween isn’t really celebrated here? That’s because Mardi Gras is Halloween. At least in the costumes department. Although we didn’t so out in the evening, we did manage to see tons of people dressed up in our normal daily outings. Just in the course of going to the course and then German class, I saw someone in a full bear costume (head to toe, full fluffy fabric), a SpiderMan, tons of variations on “wears a mask”, a little girls dressed as an Indi… Native American, a couple of hobos… although maybe they weren’t wearing costumes. Hard to tell. I also saw a roaming marching band just wandering around playing music. It was quite the thinger!
So, we missed Mardi Gras. I honestly didn’t even expect people to dress up, so when I noticed that everyone was wearing funny stuff and had makeup on and whatnot, it took a few minutes to process that into “Oh, Mardi Gras.” I’m just glad I knew what was going on before I saw the bear. Not sure how I would have reacted otherwise…
They call it Fasching.