Xerxes' Errata

It's been an intersting weekend so far here in Paderborn for two reasons. The first is that I recieved a rather unplanned souvenir from my trip to Berlin, namely, a cold. So since Saturday morning I've been blowing my nose constantly and trying to deal with a nasty headache. At least I came down with this cold near the end of my vacation and not in the middle of it, or I'd really have been pissed as opposed to the mildly pissed I am right now.

But more interestingly, there is a large festival underway here in town called Schützenfest (or shooting festival). As I understand it, there'S a ceremonial bird that's released and someone has to shoot it and then afterwards, there's a big party (though I'm pretty sure I'm wrong on the details). Either way, there's a fairground set up in the city's main meeting field (for want of a better word which I can't think of right now) with rides and of course, lots of beer.

But at the end of the week is when there's a really big festival here in town. It's called Liborifest and is in honour of the patron of Paderborn, St. Liborious who died in 390 AD and whose relics are kept here and have been here since 836. It's a weeklong festival that has little to do with the saint and more to do with partying and not working for a week and no seems to care....

What's interesting about the weeklong festival, is that every day the main cathedral here in town will ring its bells for an hour straight once each day. I'm not sure if I could deal with that. Why? Because every day at 9:00, 12:00, and 6:00 the cathedral rings its bells for about 15 minutes which is starting to drive me a little crazy. And those chimes are only using two of the cathedral's 7 bells so I can just imagine what sort of cacophany of noise that would create. Unfortunately, I won't be here for that. I head back home on Tuesday where I have my car insurance renewal waiting for me and of course, my crappy job.

Till next time...