st. martin's day

today is sort-of st. martin's day, an incredible german quasi-halloween where children go door-to-door just after sundown for candy and treats, only instead of wearing costumes they all carry lanterns around (with honest to goodness fire in them -- no pussyfooting around here), and instead of saying "trick or treat" for their candy they have to sing a song! and sure enough, p received a few serenades over our intercom tonight! i say "sort-of" because the official date for st. martin's day is november 11, but for unknown reasons tonight was apparently the big night. take a look.

p shot this from our balcony. the whole thing is crazy! tons of kids and parents come out en masse in a big procession and some of the adults even form a marching band (or actually, several -- you can kind of hear towards the end of the video where a second band starts getting near and interfering with the first)! they even closed down the street for a bit. halloween's great and all, but can it compete with this?