N.B Faschings has nothing to do with Fascists

Contrary to the week preceding it, I had a rather lovely weekend and was kept quite busy.
I have gotten to know my next door neighbour in the Marianum. On Friday we went out for dinner and a mooch around town. We went to the Festspielhaus as well as the lakeside. This is where the opera seen in James Bond Quantum of Solace was. It's all outdoors and it was pretty cold.
The next day, after a mild berating from the nuns about not eating enough at lunch, we went shopping in Dornbirn. It's the town over and a fair bit bigger than Bregenz, thus it has more shops. It wasn't open that late since it's was a Saturday but I got what I needed. We also decided to go to a bar that night. We made our way into town and into Uwe's. A definite indie/rock den, smoky, slightly cramped and yet sort of perfect for enjoying a few drinks. A number of my students were in there but I didn't acknowledge them nor they I. Instead we settled our selves into a corner with some wine. The music was provided by a jukebox. There was definitely a Johnny Cash fan amongst our midst as 'Walk the Line' was played at least 3 times. Someone also picked 'Fairytale in NY' by the Pogues. I may have been the only one to recognise its seasonal-ness (New word - the Oxford dictionary will include it next year) and happily belted out "Merry Christmas you arse llalalalala and the bells were ringing out for Christmas day".
This is apparently a good way to meet people (necessarily the singing of Christmas songs in Febuary). There was a group of guys nearby who must have figured out neither of us are Austrian as they came over to ask where we come from. On the whole they seemed rather nice and not particularly creepy, which is always a danger when talking to strangers in a bar. I turned down their offers of a drink for at least an hour but eventually gave up. A little while later a girl came over to us. She said she was the only girl out with her group and had noticed we were on our own so did we mind if they came over to join us. One was a native English speaker so they were all trying to talk in English. They were a fun bunch. They invited us to join them going to a club. We agreed and they started to usher us out of the door by saying "Go get dressed!". My immediate response was "Am I currently naked?". That went down a storm. Apparently I can be funny. Get in.
We didn't actually stay very long after leaving Uwe's. Maral wasn't feeling well so we came home.
Sunday afternoon was time for the Faschings parade. We walked into town to watch all the floats and marching bands. It was rally quite cold and my hand was frozen to the bone as I was trying to film it all. They had out lots of sweets at the parade. By hand out, I actually mean fling dangerously in any direction. I caught a few sweets in my boots. Inexplicable really. Mostly I was shielding my head. I broke a nail. How distressing.
After the parade, we got some glühwein, wandered around grabbing some food and worked our way towards some sort of prize giving ceremony/after party. This was mostly a mish mash of fancy dress, performances, dancing and alcohol. We stayed quite a while. A few girls from one of my classes approached me. Not that I had the faintest idea who they were. They stopped and chatted a while, auf Deutsch. I think they were quite glad about that.
It was rather fun, I enjoyed being able to dance away, even if random guys tried to join in with us. On of them ended up spilling his pint over our coats. Silly. One guy came over and said something that must have been in dialect because I didn't have a clue. I pointed out that I wasn't Austrian. He got rather excited about a Brit speaking German before summing up that I was geil. Being not entirely sure what that meant, but assuming it meant nice or something to that effect, I looked it up. My assumption was correct but the first definition that came up was actually horny. I was momentarily very, very confused!
So, Bregenz is not such a dreadful place after all.