Schützenfest, Hannover, Germany

So here we are again, the blog post that I should have had finished weeks ago which has been repeatedly delayed by my obsessive editing of an ebook collection instead of productive writing time!

So a few weeks ago now, I went to the Hannover Schützenfest with Ben and Steffi, I guess the first thing I should attempt to explain is what a "Schützenfest" actually is.
Many moons ago, when the city required such a thing there were the town guard, and of course as times moved on the town guard eventually became riflemen.
Each year they would hold a marksmens festival or "Schützenfest" and prizes would be awarded to the competitors, and of course beer and nice foods would be on offer.
Nowadays the festival is basically a giant fair with beer gardens, food tents, rides and attractions.

There are still certain elements of the original concept alive however, there is the "Marksmans Parade" which is where each of the contestants, several bands, and a bunch of festival carriages form a parade.

I don't believe there is ever a bad time to have your picture taken with a dangerously plagiarized mouse

The festival includes most of the usual rides, this was from a haunted house...

The next few shots are from atop the giant ferris wheel we rode on

We also rode the rollercoaster pictured below, it was fantastic, it had loops which basically form the Olympic rings, so it basically started by throwing you through each of those, and then really rather calmed down after it, quite intense for a local funfair though

 I included this next one just because it had a bunch of German flags flying

From the top of the ferris wheel, so you can see we are right near the new Town hall which is in one of the first blog posts

Steffi and I were down for a log ride since it was disturbingly hot out that day, Ben hung out and took this awful picture, I swear I was much more calm in reality

And that wraps it up for this week kids, tomorrow we are going to one of the local castles, so I will take more pictures there!
A lot more information can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzenfesthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanover_Sch%C3%BCtzenfest

BONUS! Also, as a little follow up on my piece about the zoo, this local news article was quite funny:
https://www.thelocal.de/20120712/43705/