Karneval Extravaganza

Wednesday night the excitement was mounting. Costumes were prepared, waiting to be worn. Ties and scissors were obtained, awaiting the ceremonious tie-cutting. At long last, Thursday morning, Weiberfastnacht, arrived. In an ecstasy of anticipation, we donned our costumes and made our way to the AIB pre-party. As my costume was a scarecrow, I got into character by singing “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz. At the AIB party we ate Berliners, took pictures of everyone's costume, and prepared the ties and scissors. We then walked to Beuel for the parade, which was replete with Haribo, tissues, chocolate, and even teddy bears. Candy and I both really wanted a teddy bear, but sadly we were unable to catch one. Yesenia, however, exhibited her skills at catching, and not only caught a small bear, but plenty of candy besides. I think it's safe to say, next time we play a sport involving catching, I want Yesenia on my team. Shouts of “Kamelle” rang through the streets as everyone vied for the tasty little sweets. In the spirit of socialism, we deposited all the candy that we caught into one bag, and redistributed it later. Basically we all shared and everyone took what they wanted, and it ended up working quite well. If only everything worked so easily; health care would not even be a problem.

After the parade, we caught wind that the place to be was Köln, so we headed towards the Hauptbahnhof. I wound up holding the bag of candy, and Yesenia and I separated from the group to drop it off at AIB. We ran to the Hauptbahnhof, thinking everyone was ahead of us and possibly already on a train to Köln. We met up with a few others, but there was some miscommunication as far what mode of transportation we would be using, and Yesenia and I ended up with a train ticket to Köln when most of the rest of the group was planning on taking the tram. We realized we would also rather take a tram, which we had already paid for with our public transportation passes, especially if everyone else in the group was getting to Köln that way, but unfortunately we already had the train ticket, and it we couldn't return it. Or could we? Being plucky young adults, we decided to go ahead and ask if we could return the ticket, thinking the worst that could happen was they would say no. Roughly ten minutes later, we emerged triumphantly from the Reisezentrum with smiles on our faces and €22.70 in our hands, which just goes to show that you should never assume the answer will be no.

As everyone has already said, Köln was packed with people. One of the most entertaining parts of the day was linking arms and shoving our way through the crowds, trying not to lose anyone. We went to a couple of places to experience the madness and tomfoolery that is Karneval, and Köln did not disappoint. We danced, partied, and in general hung out. When about half of us were ready to call it quits, it felt like it should have been much later than it was (around 6:00 in the evening), but then again we did start the Köln festivities at about 1:30 in the afternoon.

When my alarm went off the next morning, I thought that we should definitely have been given the day off, but I dragged myself to class and propped my eyelids open like everyone else. After class, Megan, Austin, and I went running around the Rhein for 6 miles. Even though I knew intellectually that it was a long way, and I had run 5 miles the week before, I still was somehow unprepared for just how stinking long it would take to run so far. However, we did make it, and saw some lovely scenery at parts of the river that I had not yet seen. Upon completion of the 6 mile distance and my separation from the rest of the group, I ran back to AIB, haunted by my imagination, which conjured scenes of horror such as my stuff being locked in the building for the entire weekend, but luckily Kristin was waiting to let me in when I finally made it back, and I huffed and puffed my way back to the bus stop with backpack, coat, and camera bag in tow.

The next day a subportion of the group had plans to go to Düsseldorf in order to experience Karneval in Köln's rival city. Most of them have already described the differences between Köln and Düsseldorf. Karneval in Düsseldorf seemed a bit more tame than in Köln, but it might have just been the difference of the days that we were in each place. However, it was by no means less fun. Before diving into Karneval festivities, however, we visited a modern art museum. As others have already mentioned, the first exhibit, “Haunted by Objects,” was strange and rather depressing. Several of the poems were downright suicidal. However, it was really neat to look at all of the assembled objects, as some of them were quite fascinating. The permanent exhibit seemed to suit our group more, although several of us admitted that modern art wasn't really our cup of tea. However, I still found several items that were thought-provoking, which I suppose is after all the whole point of art. The crowd favorite was probably the cloud city, as most have already said. Even though I did not participate, I thought it was very interesting that the artist was willing to let the audience contribute to the work. Wasn't he afraid someone would completely screw it up? But maybe that's just my inner control freak talking. I also liked the fact that it appeared to be inspired by spider web geometry, which I find extremely fascinating. There were also some nightmare-inducing displays of real spider webs to show the concept.

We decided you should ignore the black lines and sort of find the landscape in the changing colors.

Let the nightmares begin!

After the museum and a wonderful meat-filled lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a much-needed nap. Unfortunately, I continued my trend of dosing in and out of a very light sleep, so I decided to go running through the streets. It appeared to have rained recently, and there were puddles on the ground which I was enjoying splashing through, until one puddle turned out to conceal a deep pothole, causing me to stumble and fall. The next thing I knew, I had jerked myself awake back at the hotel, to my surprise and Megan's amusement. I tried without much success to get in a good nap, and when restful sleep proved beyond a doubt to be out of the question, I went with Megan to ask the boys what time we wanted to meet to go out in the evening. When we found that one room of boys was unlocked, with its occupants in a deep state of sleep, we couldn't resist the opportunity to do some good old-fashioned pranking in the form of taking some of their things. Come on, what would you have done in our place?

After getting our costumes on and returning all stolen items, we headed out to really experience Karneval in Düsseldorf. The crowds at this point were much more what we had expected, with nearly everyone in costume, and lines out the doors. After a delicious dinner of pizza, we found a club that didn't have too long a line. As the others have already said, the music was a very interesting mix of '70s, '80s, and '90s music, with nearly everything remixed with a sort of techno-dance beat, which was awesome because it made every song very easy to dance to. After several hours, we took a break, and half of the group was ready to call it a night, but for the rest of us the night was still young.

After making sure we knew the way back to our hotel, we went to a pub/coffee shop so we could sit for a bit. I had possibly the best cappuccino I've ever had in my life. I also had a sip of Megan's hot chocolate with Amaretto, and she wasn't kidding when she said it was the best hot chocolate ever. With this to reinforce us, we were ready to go back to the club and dance some more! Finally we too grew too tired to carry on, and made our way back to the hotel.

The next morning was a bit rough, but we finally rolled out of bed around 10:20 and got ready to check out. We were moving slowly, but we finally got everyone together, checked out, got breakfast, and made it back to the train station. On the train back some of us had an interesting political discussion, brought on by the news about the German president resigning. I really enjoyed hearing what some of my classmates had to say about the state of the country, and what we thought some solutions to economic and political problems were, ranging from practical to idealistic.

Monday we journeyed once more to Köln to experience Rosenmontag. I have to say I think Rosenmontag was my favorite day of Karneval. The parade was superior and amazing. First of all, most of the candy was chocolate, which as just about anyone who knows me can testify, chocolate is my favorite. (We once more used our socialist method of combining all the candy in one bag and letting everyone take what they wanted whenever the desire arose, and we once again came away with quite a haul, but in my opinion of higher quality this time.) Second of all, a parade where they throw flowers? Why was I not aware of such things before? We eagerly called “Kamelle!” for candy and “Streussia!” for flowers. Despite the cold, I had a wonderful time. I hopped around to the songs to keep warm and made a valiant effort to have a flower handed to me so I could participate in the charming tradition of kissing the guy who gave me the flower on the cheek. Sadly, I was not successful, but I did manage to catch several flowers thrown from floats. I also managed to catch two of the little teddy bears being thrown, bringing to fruition my desire for a teddy bear which was conceived on Thursday. Like true Kölners we stayed until the end of the parade so we could see die Jungfrau, der Prinz, and der Bauer, and then four of us promptly headed for the train station, since the parade we were told would last about two hours had in fact lasted six, and we were ready to be home. At home I joyously arranged my flowers in a vase, and today they are looking quite nice. The tulip has even opened up some, and they are all wafting a faint scent, which I absolutely love because it reminds me of spring. For those of you who have forgotten, spring is the season that comes after winter. The only bad part is, it just occurred to me that I will have to leave my flowers here when we go to Vienna tomorrow, and they will probably be wilting by the time we get back. Since I'm sure Vienna will be awesome, I guess it's a small price to pay.

Spring! It does exist! I thought it was only a legend.

Today, in the spirit of Mardi Gras, I consumed a ridiculous amount of the candy that we had collected at the parade yesterday, which turned out to be a really bad idea. I had already been feeling a little ill, and a lunch of chocolate and Haribo definitely did not help matters. When my brain finally realized that those panicked signals from my stomach weren't requests for more chocolate, the nausea really began to set in and I ended up on the floor next to the trashcan, trying not to throw up. Unfortunately just about everyone was there to witness my humiliation, and of course to poke a bit of good-natured fun at me, but I was not in any mood to be laughing by that time. I may or may not have professed my hatred for everyone in the room, but I can't be held accountable for anything said in the throes of my affliction. When the nausea abated enough for me to get up and walk, I sheepishly left with my metaphorical tail between my legs, vowing to never eat chocolate again (a resolution I will probably break soon since even such an event cannot dampen my love of chocolate).