Annakirmes

For a little over a week in August every year, the city of Düren celebrates Annakirmes, a festival which has its roots in medieval times and continues to today. After looking at the website, it looks like there are some pretty neat traditions, parades, and ceremonies that happen with this event, but we didn't know about them in time to see them. We did, however, go to the "Family Fun Fair," which was an full of rides and booths selling food, candy, trinkets, and beer. We went on Tuesday, which is traditionally family day, when all the rides were half off. This didn't help us too much, though, since we had forgotten to go to the bank that day and were really low on cash. We have decided that a good way to not spend a lot of money at events like this is to not have any money with you, and no ready means available to get more. We bought one ride for Mikayla and one crepe to share and that was it.

The leg of Darren's pants - showing off the drips of chocolate sauce that dripped all over us from our chocolate and banana crepe. It was yummy, but very messy. It was so messy that a little girl stopped by us to offer us her napkins.

Mikayla on her carousel ride. She did smile and have a good time, but was a little distracted by the huge ride next to the carousel that had screaming people getting flipped upside down. She liked "driving" the little car and we had a hard time convincing her to get out.

Some of the sweets for sell. We saw children walking around with these hung around their necks.

Ferris wheel

Balloon man

We were glad that we were able to experience the fair, which I believe is the third largest in Germany, but were also glad to get out of the crush of people. And if we go back, we will be sure to have just a little bit more money on hand.