Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Four parades, fourth blog post

It's been a long five day weekend, but I'm thrilled to announce that I survived Karneval. And I most definitely got the full, blown out experience. From parades in Beule, Bonn, Köln, and Bad Godesberg to parties with my host parents and with my friends' host families, saying I did a lot is an understatement. Honestly, it went by a lot faster than I expected, but I think five days of Karneval is enough for me. I think my host mom is a little worn out too. Monday night on our train ride back from Köln she said, "Wow, I made party four days in a row."

I spent the majority of my time with some awesome friends and my host family. I'm so thankful they took me to experience everything and did their best to make sure I had a good time. And I most definitely did. Thursday, the first day of Karneval I was eine kuh (a cow). My decision on this was based solely on how warm the costume was. The parade in Beule was freezing! It was cold and raining and people were chunking large candy bars. I got hit in the face twice. I guess we could agree that my hand-eye coordination is not the best... Friday we celebrated Sarah's birthday and Saturday I hung out with my family as a small parade in Bad Godesberg came by our house. So I only had to step out of the front door. I also met Kyle's host brothers and friends which was cool and they spoke really good English. Sunday was the family party in Bad Godesberg and the larger parade. It was huge. All of my host mom's friends were there. And it was a good time. By then I was already catching on to singing along to some of the songs (or at least pretending to know the words). This time I went as matching clowns with my mom and sister. We did each others makeup and picked out different colored wigs for each other (pink, blue, and green). And lastly, Monday I went to the parade in Köln for Rose Monday, also as the trio clown clan again. What an experience it all has been.

Tuesday, reality hit again and I did physiology almost the entire day. It sounds like my Karneval experience wasn't very educational as if I didn't participate in many studies. Believe or not, I learned a lot during Karneval. For example, my host dad taught me a knew German phrase, "Guten Morgen Shelby, Hast du Kater?" I normally replied with a chuckle followed up with, "Nein!" I'll let you figure out what that means. :)

It's been almost a month and I am loving Germany more and more each day. I still don't think there will be a point when I'm ready to head back home. Keep reading the blog, I'll keep you posted!

Bis bald.

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