Bring on the parade! At least the snow stopped

I was woken up by the sound of someone shoveling snow off the sidewalk outside my building this morning.  I wasn’t planning on going out today, but about 2 pm the streams of costumed people going along the foot path behind my apartment was more than I could resist.  I put on my orange coat and my new Christmas hat and followed them.  At the end of the foot path, the stream turned left under the Autobahn and became a veritable flood of costumed Germans.  And it was clear they were lining up for a parade.

This was very exciting for me, because I love parades, and I was sad to be missing the Karneval parades this year because of my trip to Seattle.  I was supposed to have left this morning, but even after I changed my ticket to leave tomorrow, I figured I’d still miss everything, because I thought all the parades were Sunday and Monday.  But not the one in Wahn.  At least I think it was the Wahn parade.  I actually don’t know where all the route went, because I realized as I was leaving that I was at the very end of it.

The thing I really love about German carnival is that everybody participates.  Everyone was there in costume, from the smallest babies in strollers to the old folks in wheel chairs from the local nursing home.  Teenage boys stand around drinking beer in head-to-toe fuzzy pink bunny costumes, and teenage girls in short skirts try not to look cold.  The little ones have costumes fitted under or over snow pants and hats and scarves and mittens.  Older couples stroll past in elaborate hand-sewn creations that they must pull out year after year.  People bring wagons and carts with pony kegs and huge speakers, so when you walk down the street the music merges from one party to the next.  Dancing is a good way to stay warm while you wait for the parade to start.  People drink liquor from tiny shot-sized bottles that are sold this time of year.  Or beer.  Lots of beer.  They wear the tall skinny Kölsh glasses in little cozies around their necks.  Here, unlike either of the carnival parades Joe and I went to last year, there is a strong Cologne flavor.  Lots of people are decked out in red and white, the colors of the city, or the blue and white of Porz.  By the end, there are men urinating against walls, and broken glass, and millions of smashed candies underfoot.  Every child has to dissolve into tears at least once, because they got hit with a chocolate bar, or someone else snatched something they wanted, or they are just cold and tired.  But really, it’s all just good family fun.  No really, I mean that.  I wish we had something like it in America.

I actually left before the end of the parade because I was completely cold and couldn’t hold or stuff into my pockets any more candy (I hadn’t thought to bring a bag).  When you see the picture of what I brought home, you might think it seems like a lot, but it’s probably the single smallest haul of any person at the entire parade.  Most people got twenty times that much.  One thing you can’t say of German parades, is that they are stingy with the candy.  I fell a little strange being there alone, and not in costume, and not being German, and not being with kids, and not having a bag, and being way too self-concious to holler for “Kamelle!” so I wasn’t very aggressive.  Because most of the people in this parade were walking instead of riding in high floats, they just put the candy right into the bags of the kids (and adults) at the front, just like trick-or-treating.   I wasn’t at the front.  And not to sound a jaded or anything, but I have to say, if you aim wasn’t to come home with the biggest possible bad of candy, this wasn’t such an exciting parade.  Most of the groups were local clubs or kindergartens or the like, with people in some kind of theme costume walking along and throwing/passing out candy.  I feel like the ones last year had more diversity, people actually playing music or marching or something.  Ah well.  There was one group with some connection to lions who were riding huge horses and dressed in skins with their faces painted yellow.  That was impressive.

The parade folks throw all kinds of things besides candy: little sample-sized lotions and shampoo, flowers, key chains, little toys, packets of kleenex, etc.  The biggest score is a full sized chocolate bar, which is hard to get.  (Although I have to say, those old folks across the street were raking them in.)  The highlight of the parade for me was probably when a nice-looking old guy at the top of a turret tossed one specially to me in the back.  You never know what little thing might make someone’s day.

Enjoy the pictures and the video.  Kölle Alaaf!

My takings from the afternoon

Because it wouldn’t be a German Karneval parade without the NYPD

One of my favorite floats

This little Indian was more interested in eating her candy than catching more

If I had to sum up the spirit of Karneval in one float, it would be this one

A family sporting the Cologne colors

… to the very young

Karneval is enjoyed by everyone: the very old…

I don’t know what made these people important, but check out those feathers

Beginning of the parade, across from a normally mild mannered shoe store

The float that you can see in the clip below belonged to a local radio station, and was the biggest and loudest one in the parade.  The Hallelujah song that you hear must be a popular one, because it was playing on four or five different floats as they went past where I was standing.

This clip shows how one group of parade participants was relaxing at the end of the route.

 

It’s snowing! Time for the parade!

Snow in Aachen last week

While most of America is getting clobbered with snow, we’re getting plenty of the white stuff here in Germany as well.  The last two weeks have had snow almost every day.  It isn’t cold enough that very much of it stays on the ground, but it keeps coming down, and it’s warm enough that the flakes are huge and fluffy and stick to everything else.  It’s really very pretty.  Last night it got cold enough that the big pretty fluffy flakes turned into little hard driving flakes that have piled up to 3 or 4 inches and are still coming down.

This isn’t an especially good time for a snow storm, because today is Weiberfastnacht, the beginning of Karneval.  Our secretary was arranging paper streamers on the potted plants in the lobby when I got to work this morning.  A few minutes ago, a huge cheer went up and sure enough, it was 11:11 am, when the festivities kick off in earnest.  About 11:12 they tapped the keg.  Now most of the institute seems to be standing around in the lobby drinking beer while the festive (read, polka-esque) Karneval music blares.  The only people I know here aren’t German and not so into the celebrations, so I’m not taking part either.  The music makes it hard to actually work though, so I’m blogging until lunch.

Update: I take that back.  Just as I typed that, one of the girls in my office came in and invited me to join them.  So I went and had a Berliner and a drink (apple juice, but it looks like beer).  It’s a fun, crazy celebration.  A lot of people here don’t even realize that it’s connected to Lent though, so I think they really ought to reschedule for later in the spring.  Parades in February are just silly.

 

Bad Boys, Bad Boys…

One more note about the Menden Karneval Parade.  We have a winner for “Most Bizarre and Unexpected Sight of our Time in Germany Thus Far.”

About halfway through the parade, we saw police lights flashing down the road.  Another St. Augustin police van bearing candy?  Oh no…not by a long shot.

As you can see below, an NYPD cruiser showed up.  I was stunned.  And then it was followed by motorcycles and a “paddy wagon.”   Of course, all the “officers” were Germans, but they were wearing NYPD uniforms.  Is this the Twilight Zone?  What are these vehicles doing in our humble neighborhood?

Of course, I started to feel the heat.  Are they on to me?  Is the jig up?  Do I know the German word for “lawyer”?

I would have asked Amber to pinch me a couple of times, but a part of me was excited that I might have been magically transported back to New York.

We are opening an investigation into the procurement of the car.  We’ll let you know if we find anything.

 

Karneval in Menden

On Rosenmontag, DLR was closed for the holiday so Joe and I went to the parade in our little town of Menden.  For such a small place, there was a huge crowd and a really respectable parade.   It was fun… everyone seemed to know each other and participants would often stop to hug and chat (and exchange alcohol) with people in the crowd.  It wasn’t anything like the the big parade in Cologne, which we watched on TV in the morning.  There they’ve got over a million spectators and throw something like 14 tons of candy.  There is a tradition of mocking political figures, with a naked figure of Chancellor Angela Merkel drawing the most controversy in the Cologne parade this year (the bikini was painted on at the last minute, although does it really make any difference?).  This dates back to the middle ages when carnival was the only time common people were allowed to speak out against church and political leaders without fear of punishment.  Be sure to click on all the photos of the parade and read the captions.

 

Karneval… Alaaf!

Karneval is taken very seriously in this part of Germany.  Joe and I began to get into the spirit immediately after church on Sunday when the organist broke into a rousing carnival tune during the postlude. From the church, we headed to Bad Godesburg, the neighborhood of Bonn just south of the church. Although almost every neighborhood around here has its own festivities, Bad Godesburg was an independent city until 1969 and is known for its enthusiastically independent celebrations.

We took the train a few stops and followed the people in the crazy wigs to the parade route. My favorite part about Karneval is that absolutely everybody dresses up. Almost everyone of every age watching the parade had on some kind of costume on. Clowns are particularly popular, as are nuns, prisoners, and animals. Can you imagine any circumstances whatsoever in which an American teenage boy would willingly don a full-body pink fuzzy bunny costume? The fuzzy animals are a good choice though, because they’re warm and it was cold and wet the last couple days. At least it didn’t snow, which we’ve heard is pretty common. Who decides to hold the biggest out-door party of the year in February? Carnival here has absolutely no religious significance here anymore (a lot of people I’ve talked to don’t even know it is tied to Lent) so you’d think they might be able to move it back a couple months.

We were standing near a group of women decked out in green and yellow who were drinking beer and playing Karneval music. Everyone seems to know the words to these songs and sings along. They are definitely catchy, but always in the Cologne dialect, which is relatively incomprehensible even to other German speakers and utterly hopeless for me. Then the parade started. There were bands and floats, people in fancy, old-style military costumes, and lots and lots of candy being thrown. Besides candy, parade participants also throw flowers, whole chocolate bars, confetti, packets of Kleenex, bags of potato chips and caramel popcorn, and many gummy bears. Some of the stranger things Joe and I came home with were a banana, a package of fancy paper napkins, a “Pocket Waffle” and a package of something labeled in German as breast caramels. We haven’t opened those yet.

There were certainly a lot of people drinking, including people on the floats, and some of the teenagers were probably over-indulging but there was none of the drunken debauchery and people passed out in the street that we’d heard are so common in Cologne. This was really a family affair, with lots of kids and friendly shouts of “Alaaf!”  That’s the traditional Karneval cry in this region, which is used only at this time of year and seems to mean something like “Hooray!”  But with a holiday that combines the best of Halloween, the Fourth of July, and New Years Eve, who wouldn’t want to celebrate?

 

“You’d really better double-Windsor not…”*

If you’re not the churchgoing type, it may have escaped you that Lent is starting next week, on Ash Wednesday.  Of course, Ash Wednesday is preceded by Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”), a day of revelry before the time of penitence and fasting.  And Mardi Gras is simply the last day of Carnival, a whole period of celebration, the length of which varies around the world.

When I think of Carnival or Mardi Gras, I think of New Orleans and Rio.  And based on our experience of Germans thus far, if I hadn’t read about it, I’d never assume they’d partake in any sort of debauchery.  But Karneval in the Cologne area is supposed to be one of the biggest parties in all of Europe.

In our part of the country, Karneval — known as the “fifth season” — kicked off back in November, on the 11th day of the 11th month, with some crazy partying we heard about from the young French guys in our language class.  Then things were quiet for awhile, until last weekend.

On television, things started heating up, with extremely silly concerts and celebrations.  The most important thing about Karneval, it seems, is to have a truly rockin’ costume.  The stores — even the modest market across the street — started selling pirate, cowboy, and nun costumes about a week ago.

But the true beginning of the raucousness known as the “crazy days” is today — Weiberfastnacht (women’s carnival night).  Today, the women are in charge!  Girls wear costumes to school.  Women get special priviliges, such as kissing any man they wish .  And any man caught wearing a tie had better be sure it’s a cheap one, as normally reserved German women will cut it off.

Maybe it’s good that Amber’s coming back tomorrow.

I’m tempted to sacrifice a tie for the experience, but clueless about the intricacies of the ritual, I fear I’ll end up in some sort of trouble.

There will, apparently, be partying all weekend, with the biggest day of Karneval here being Rosemontag (Rose Monday).   On Monday, the biggest parties and parades will happen, and every will get rip-roaringly drunk.  There’s a saying here: “If you saw the parade, you weren’t at the parade.”   Whoever’s not hung over or exhausted will try to party again on Tuesday.

We’ll let you know whatever parts of this we get to experience.

____

*The title of this post is not a funny German saying, but rather a terrible pun created by Joe.