Entenrennen 2014

It's that time of year again, time for the Weidenhausen Entenrennen! Anna and I participated again (see Facebook pictures from 2012 for the previous Entenrennen; we missed 2013 due to a trip biking through Provence), and this year were joined in the competition by my (Sasha's) cousin Sahar.

Painting the ducks

Anna and I decided to do a European duck species this year, the Red-crested Pochard (Kolbenenten auf Deutsch), with Sasha painting the female, and Anna the male. Anna also decided to do a Marburg Duck, or MarDuck, as we've been calling it. Sahar decided to do a Harly Quinn duck.

All our ducks in a row

The front of the MarDuck - St. Elizabeth's Church

The Back of the MarDuck St. Elizabeth

The Right side: Old town Marburg and Castle

The Left side: Wilhelm's Tower and woods. Note the flying Common Cranes

 

The competition, pre-race.

The Lahn river has been high lately, from the recent rain we've been having, so the current was quite swift.

Anna giving her duck pre-race swimming lessons

Starting line

The swimming lessons did not sink in, apparently.

Nearing the finish line. (count 3 back ducks over to the right of the person, and you'll see Sahar's duck (darker than the others)

At the finish line. The Brothers Grimm fish looks on in approval.

 Sahar's duck was the fastest of the three of our ducks, and might have placed in the top 7, but there was no photo finish, so another finisher was selected for the 7th place prize (last prize awarded) over her duck.

Anna's duck, unfortunately also outcompeted my duck, (despite neither of our ducks taking the typical right-side up swimming posture).

This meant that I had to buy the ice cream (poor me, having to buy ice cream... sometimes life is full of hardships).

Anna's MarDuck and Sahar's Harley Quinn both also placed among the nicest of the ducks:

Look at how practiced Anna is at holding the duck high. It's like she's won stuff before.

After interrogation about the origin of her name, Sahar also received a prize

The weekend was also the Elisabethmarkt, which included the giant head art things again, and a Ferris wheel (turns out my wife has a strong affinity for Ferris wheels. Who knew?). A Ferris wheel is called a Riesenrad in German, which translates to the more intuitive Giant Wheel.

And would any blog post really be complete without a gratuitous castle picture?