Karneval

Here in Germany, Karneval is the equivalent of Mardi Gras in Brazil. Everyone says "Here we have five seasons. Winter, summer, spring, fall, and karneval." The season begins on the 11th of November at 11:11am, and it ends with a huge celebration the weeks before lent begins. I told y'all about the karneval sitzung that I went to, that's the kind of stuff that happens before karneval week.

Oh! Also, I should mention I'm REALLY lucky to be living here, because karneval really only happens in the Rhineland region of Germany, with Düsseldorf and Köln being the two centers of Karneval celebrating; meanwhile people in north, east, and southern Germany don't really celebrate it at all, or, if they do, they are small, local celebrations.

ANYWAY the first day of Karneval is Thursday, altweibernacht (old woman's night).  This is the day when all the girls get to run around and cut off all the men's ties (that happened to my philosophy teacher but that all I saw of that). We got out of school at 11:30, but really, by 11:11 everyone was done. And I was possibly the only person in the entire school who was even a little bit sober (maybe I'm the only one who received the dozen memos that alcohol that alcohol is EXTRA forbidden at school during karneval???). Oh and I forgot to say, this was our version of halloween, because everyone wore their costumes to school. After school, I met Rachel and Julia in Düsseldorf. We went to the altstadt and it was insane and I won't be able to properly convey the craziness which is a bummer. We looked to meet up with Julia from Canada but nobody's cellphones worked because it was THAT crowded and we couldn't find her on our own because it was THAT crowded so we went to the square where a concert was going on and danced for about a half an hour and then it started raining so we tried to go inside a pub -- horrible idea. Everyone was trying to get indoors to get out of the rain and use the bathrooms and it was a madhouse. We got swept all the way inside by the mass of people, and it was so full of people all trying to get either in or out that nobody could really go anywhere. We tried to leave but that was even harder than getting in in the first place -- I think we were in this pub almost half an hour and my feet almost never actually touched the ground; I was propelled everywhere by the force of everyone else. Another woman my size finally got out of the pub in tears. When we finally got outside, we decided that was enough of an experience for one day, and also it was still raining, so we decided to go home. But, again, EVERYONE had made that decision, so the street that led to the u-bahn station --maybe about two or three blocks long-- was pretty much as packed as the pub. We finally got headed home, and rachel and I were ABSOLUTELY DONE for the day so we had a movie night on the couch while Julia went out to party in Langenfeld.

Rachel stayed the whole Karneval weekend with us and to be really honest I dont really remember what we did Friday but it wasn't karneval related. But we did go to the altstadt Friday night and Rachel and I sat in the square and just watched all the drunken people frolic around. A couple time really drunk guys came up and tried to talk with  us and by the time we went home our mantra was "thank god for the sober friends" who would come and apologize and take their drunken companions away.

Saturday was Alex's last day so Julia and Alex and I went sightseeing. We went to these old ship locks from the 1800's (?) and a ship museum and that was really cool. And then we walked around this old city called Hattingen where all of the buildings in the old town came from 1500 or 1600 and they were old and beautiful and I told Julia that that's what I thought every German town would look like and she laughed. And then we went home and had fajitas with Rachel and it was great.

Sunday morning Julia and Rachel and I woke up really early and dressed up and went to Köln where we stuck out front row places for the parade. Everyone drank and had fun an the kids all begged for candy and roses from the paraders and Julia and I saw friends of ours in the parade and it was just really really fun. Afterwards we went to a bar and  danced for a few hours. We went home and it was Julia's turn to be dead while Rachel and I went out to the gardens across the street from our house and crashed a karneval party. We were the only people under the age of 65 there, and we just danced in the middle of the floor by ourselves and eventually some old women came to dance with us and when they found out we were from America we became the guests of honor. That was the first time in my life I have seen 70 and 80 year olds completely wasted. Only in Germany... Then we went home to eat dinner, and then back out to the altstadt for more drunk-people watching. Monday we got dressed up again and went back to Düsseldorf where we met up with Holger and Sabine (Rachel's temporary host family from language camp) and found a place to watch the parade. It was a huge street parade of everyone dancing together and then the parade came and then more dancing, only interrupted my the street cleaners who came through (There is even a karneval song to play when the street cleaners come!). By 2 in the afternoon I was barely able to stand up anymore, we were all completely exhausted. And that was karneval!