“Hallo” to All of You from Germany

I am a third-year THM student and I am studying here in Germany as a SOCRATES/Erasmus exchange student. I assume that all you know what Erasmus is but if you don't, briefly, it is an exchange program for university students studying in one of the European countries to go and study in another European country. Well, if you would like to know more, then I recommend that you visit the internet site for Erasmus: http://www.socrates.bilkent.edu.tr/    and try to become involved in this program.

Now, some news from Germany. At first I was going to write about German students but I have changed my mind. I can do that later and would rather talk to you about a famous carnival in Cologne. It was last month. It was amazing. First of all, as general background, this carnival is a celebration of the upcoming season. It is celebrated here in November and then there is another carnival in February. Everybody tells me that it will be larger and better. I hope I can see for myself the carnival in February. But if I do go next time, I will also dress up. Yes, because everyone was all dressed up at the carnival.

People were dressed as clowns, monks, even Hoodwinked and Elvis Presley! The USA President George Bush was also at the carnival! Can you imagine hundreds of these crazy people in the streets of Cologne? They were drinking and singing all together. We went there at eleven o'clock in the morning and unfortunately we had to come back by four in the afternoon but there was no ending time for the festival. People were having fun into the next morning. Of course, if you are still awake…because it was just ten in the morning and all of the people on the train were already drunk! This meant that we started our carnival on our way to Cologne. Our train was full of these funny people going to carnival, too. They were singing and laughing. We joined in with them because we didn't have any other choice as we were surrounded by all of these crazy people - we had to sing too! But it was not so bad, really. I had a lot of fun. I hope you can find an opportunity one time in your life to come and join this crazy carnival.

That's all from me for now. If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please don't hesitate to write me!

Have a nice week and I wish you every success in your courses. And as Germans say ''Tschüsss!''