karneval

in the wee hours of friday morning, you would've found me on the paris metro - sleepily making my way to gare du nord to catch my train to germany. after difficulties getting my bought-at-the-last-minute train ticket then consequently sprinting the length of 28 train carriages (with a 20kg pack, mind you) to find my seat before the train took off...you can imagine that by the time i arrived in köln i was ready for a nice nap in front of a warm wood fire.

jana, on the other hand, had other plans. it was on with the costumes and out of the door with a warm coat in one hand and several beers in the other. this week in köln and bonn, germans are celebrating karneval. historically, it's the last few days before lent where people can still eat meat (carne = meat), and people wear crazy, bright costumes to chase/scare winter away to make room for spring. but let's be honest, i think we all know the main reason for karneval...

karneval goes for about a week, and it's famous for its züge (street parades). the largest one i went to was on rosenmontag (rose monday) in bonn. the actual parade went for three hours, and is made up of hundreds of floats.  the thousands of people lining the streets shout kamelle! (candy!) and strüsse! (flowers!) and the people on the floats throw down chocolates, lollies, chips, flowers, popcorn, klopfers (shots), and for those who are really lucky... toilet paper.

everyone got really into the costume aspect of karneval, and usually dressed up differently every day. in our group of friends we had minnie mice, dwarves, sailors, where's wallies, hippies, carrots, cowboys & indians, bavarians and funkemariechen (traditional german cheerleaders), as well as a tonne of others. throughout the whole festival, karneval musik is blasted from every shop, house, mobile, float, etc. my german friends thought it necessary for me to learn one of them, so it goes something like this...

da simmer dabei, dat is prima
viva colonia!
wir lieben das leben, die liebe und die lust
wir glauben an den lieben gott und ham noch immer durst!

tschüss,


S.

throwing klopfer from the floats

caught some schokolade!

empty klopfer all lined up