Easter is called Ostern in German. The Easter Week starts on Palm Sunday as is known as the Karwoche. Its climax starts on Maundy Thursday, known as Gründonnerstag and is followed by Karfreitag, Karsamstag, Ostersonntag and Ostermontag.

Traditionally people either go to Church on Saturday evening to a service called the Osterfeuer or on Sunday morning.

Also on Sunday morning children hunt for Easter Eggs, Ostereier, around the flat or in the garden.

Easter marks the end of Lent, so people eat meat again on Easter Sunday. They eat pork, beef or even rabbit and can start drinking alcohol again.

Karfreitag, Ostersonntag and Ostermontag are public holidays, so all of the shops are closed.

The date on which Easter falls varies from year to year, but can be calculated. It can be anytime between the 22nd March and 25th April. The exact fomula is known as “Computus” (see Wikipedia for more details).

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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Tags: Computus, Easter, Gründonnerstag, karfreitag, Karsamstag, Karwoche, Ostermontag, Ostern, Ostersonntag

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Easter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.