Things I've been doing: Gassenfreitag and the 24 hour shopping spree

Visiting Germany: Tourist in my Own Town

The sun has finally arrived in Germany and it almost feels like it’s here to stay. When it first made an appearance, being English I instantly donned the sundress but I noticed, if anything, the Germans had put on more layers. They bundled up in scarves and jackets, huddled together at the bus stop, squinting suspiciously into the glorious sunshine or ignoring it entirely. It’s almost as if they don’t dare to trust it. Like when that annoying friend offers you a bag of sweets and then snatches it away again, smirking, before you can grab one. When he then re-offers the bag with false promises about not to repeat the trick, you have three choices with how to deal with the miscreant. Violence (too risky), self blame, ("I probably deserve this") or the most effective, and therefore the clear German choice: the guilt trip. We’ve just been hurt too many times, their sad eyes seem to say, blinking away a bead of sweat.

Anyway, it's been steadily sunny for a week now and we've all learned to trust the weather again. Everyone is having barbecues and drinking at the Strand Bar on the Rheine. I almost doomed a sunny Saturday to nursing a 'dehydration' headache and looking balefully at my essay but I decided to take it outside instead. And to forget the essay... at least for the weekend.

Gassenfreitag

Today in Konstanz (Saturday 9th June) we have a 24 hour trans-border Flohmarkt (flea market), which is 14km long with over 1000 stalls and ends in Kruezlingen, Switzerland. I feel like I’ve been training my whole life for this moment: Summer boot sales, Charity shop raids, El Rastro on a Sunday in Madrid and the warm up Flohmarkts here in Konstanz happening more frequently now that its Summer. Konstanz has undergone a colossal transformation since the long, long Winter months. Last night was the second Gassenfreitag, a mini street 'festival' that happens in the evening on the first Friday of every month from May-October in Niederburg, the old town in Konstanz around the Cathedral. Down the cobbled-stone streets people set up stalls outside their houses or on the street selling clothes and bric-a-brac and others come to sell sausages, beer and kuchen or to give away gold paper crowns. There are different musicians playing in different parts of the street and people get up and start clapping, waltzing, Zweifach-ing. Two couples had brought their own table outside and had their wine and candlelit dinner on the street watching the hustle and bustle. Later in the evening the bars in Niederburg often host local bands or singers too, it’s always a great atmosphere and flocks of people attend. I managed to find a pretty great vintage suede jacket, complete with Pocohauntus tassels, so it’s really worth a visit even for the shopping. Though I do like the beer and sausage consumption. So, that was yesterdays festivities and then tonight a slow Summer evening stroll along the bank of the Rheine, bargain hunting.

Me and the team in the newspaper with the title "Fashion with good conscience"

In other news, I’ve had a hiatus from writing as I had Future Fashion Day, brain child of Leila Kasimova, to prepare and recover from. It was a lot of hard work and took up a lot of time, but was worth it in the end. Lots of people came (a bit nerve-wracking before the show) and amazingly the show came off without a hitch due to the hard work and organisation of a fantastic team (well done everyone, too many to list here but see articles and pages below for more details!). We all organised it totally from scratch, just a small team of students and oikos members: emailing designers, gaining sponsors, designing the label, making a website, writing press releases, organising the venue...etc. I also chose the outfits and fitted and styled the models- which was a lot of fun. I then made the models sequence and generally rushed around backstage on the day making sure all 20 models had their make up and hair perfect and knew what outfit changes they had to do, with particular help from my amazing wardrobe assistant Cynthia who we thankfully managed to recruit only a week before the show. We ended up being in quite a few German newspapers and online magazines! But now that I have a bit more time I’d like to return to writing here and maybe start writing about the different places that I’ve been to here in Germany. I haven't only been a tourist in my own town! Hopefully that would be of interest.

The end of the Future Fashion show

Update: I was supposed to post that yesterday but didn't have the chance to go before the Flohmarket., so I'll write what I thought about the Flohmarket. For starters, it was a lot bigger than I was expecting. Was absolutely... huge! And even so, with 14 Kilometers of road, often with triple lanes of market stalls , every inch was rammed with people until we left at about 1am. It started petering out at about 22:00, but there was still a continuos stream of determined browsers. It was great though - think enormous car boot sale mixed with a German Christmas Market. It seems like an absolute must to attend for anyone who lives within a 100km radius- grannies, mothers and babies, young trendy kids, concerned citizens and hippies alike, everyone was there. Browsing after dark was a particularly fun novelty. The torch beam (a necessity I'm glad I was prepared for) becomes your line of sight and when your hunting through hundreds of stalls you really become aware of the rapid, predator-like speed the light flicks across venetian masks to wooden nutcrackers, focusing briefly on a promising looking glitter, and then swooping off onto the next stall. I felt a bit like the Eye of Sauron searching for the one ring. I tried to find a good clip but just imagine searching a 14km Flohmarkt with a torch and this playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PouS6aAsD4I. We couldn't handle any more than 4 hours of shopping, and I'm sure that we barely made it 4 K but for anyone who has determination and stamina you could make it the whole 14 K and still have time for an 8 hour sleep in the middle.