The calm before the storm

Karneval ist fertig! Yesterday I woke up around 6:30 and immediately began to debate whether or not I really wanted to get out of bed to go see the parade in Köln.  Eventually the Karenval side won and I forced myself out of bed and out to the bus stop in time to meet a group at hauptbanhof. 

Now rosenmontag is the biggest day of Karneval, noted by the huge parade in Köln.  I had thought it would last a couple of hours at most.  The parade started at 11:11 and had barely ended around 4:00.  Five hours of parade, marching, drums, getting pelted with chocolates, and being given little flower bouquets.  My throat was sore by the end from shouting for Kamella (caramels or candies) but I did manage to earn some flowers.  Oh, did I mention that you get flowers by attracting the attention of one of the marchers and giving them a kiss on the cheek?  If only I actually owned lipstick! By the end of the parade all of the girls in the crowd had bundles of flowers and the men’s cheeks were covered in red marks.  Someone in the group commented that this tradition was much better than the one for mardi gras in New Orleans.  This was only a cute peck on the cheek for flowers, not flashing people for beads.   

After the parade we tried to head back to the train station to go home.  Unfortunately that meant evading crowds and trying to circumvent the parade that was still winding its way through the city further down the route from where we were watching.  Finally we made it on to the train and back to Bonn, along with all of our flowers and our gigantic bag of chocolate.

All in all I really enjoyed Karneval.  I got a unique look at a German tradition and even got to talk to some Germans while waiting in various lines (aka: the bathroom).  My German has improved enough to hold a simple conversation.  Usually it goes something like this:

German: *says something that I actually understand*
Me: *Laughs and agrees*
German: *tries to continue the joke/conversation further*
Me: *Pained look* uhh…ich spreche nur ein bischen Deutsch (i speak only a little German)
German: Oh! Englisch?
Me: Ja
German: Also, woher kommst du?
Me: Texas
German: goes off on exclaimations about Texas

Then the conversation goes on to why I am in Germany (student, not just for Karneval) etc etc.  I usually have to say complicated explainations in English, but lately I have been able to start the sentence in German and just use the English word for something when I really do not know the word (which is still pretty often).  Still a way to go before I can claim that I actually know German though but I am getting there!

Time to start packing for Vienna now!