St. Martin and the Lantern Walk

Sometimes I forget I live in a completely different country. It's easy to get used to everything, put an American vernier on life a bit and voila, where am I again?

That did not happen this past Wednesday. I had heard the primary teachers talking about a "lantern walk", but I had no idea what that meant and didn't really think twice about it...until I got home. At around 5:30PM, a man's voice, strong and clear rang out as if he was sitting on my front lawn. He was singing, really, really loudly about some guy named St. Martin...hmmmm. Pop on the laptop and thank you Wikapedia! Yes, November 11 is St. Martin's Day which commemorates St. Martin. St. Martin was a Roman soldier who converted and became a monk.

Well, I couldn't sit in my apartment with a party going on so I went outside to check it out. I was catching the end of the "lantern walk". All the small children from the local parish (along with their parents) walked around the neighborhood with their homemade decorative lanterns singing songs about their lanterns and St. Martin. They met at the front steps of St. Maximilian church where there was the man singing with your traditional German band. That I expected when I rounded the corner, mostly because they had the PA up so loud you could hear him a mile away (literally!).

But what I didn't expect was how huge this was. The police had shut down the entire street and were rerouting traffic so the children could do the lantern walk safely. I also didn't count on the guy on the horse. Right in front of the steps of the church in a roped off area was "St. Martin" himself, in full Roman armor (well, underneath the snow jacket, but the helmet was cool) riding a horse in circles in front of the crowd.

I stood around a while and watched...mostly to see all the kids smacking each other with their lanterns and then crying when they snapped the stick. I saw a lot of neighbors and people I ride the bus with every day. However, about the third repetition of the "St. Martin, St. Martin..." I decided it was time to meet up a friend a cafe.

This Youtube video shows almost exactly what my neighborhood looked like (except the horse was brown) and that catchy yet annoying song is "St. Martin, St. Martin..." Just imagine it being sung on a really loud sound system with a full oompa band and you'll have the full effect of this cool festival for kids.