Karneval - Germany Week 4

             Each week there seems to be a new adventure waiting around the corner, and this week definitely wasn’t an exception. Nothing could have prepared me for the craziness that is Karneval.

            The week started out normal with classes and things. My class schedule wasn’t too full, so it was nice to have a break. One of our classes was even cancelled on Wednesday, so we were done before lunch! On Tuesday, we had our German class and Hilde spent the time prepping us for Karneval. She gave us advice and then we learned one of the popular Karneval songs. Although learned may not be the correct word. At least for me, I looked at the paper and listened to the music and attempted to pronounce the words along with the rhythm. Although I have learned that the music is always played so loudly that no one ever knows if you are saying the correct words or not.

              So Thursday was the start of Karneval. To kick off the celebration, we dawned our costumes and headed to the parade in Beuel. They warned us that we would be most likely get hit in the head with flying candy, but I did not expect the constant shower of candy that pelted us throughout the parade. Every time you turned your head, more candy was flying towards it. And not just candy, but also packages of tissues and lotion and bouncy balls. It was quite the experience, not just with the floats, but also seeing so many people all dressed up. The closest holiday familiar to me is Halloween because of the costumes, but Karneval is nothing like Halloween. There are multiple parades all over the Rhineland and the celebrations last for days. A closer comparison would be Mardi Gras, but I have never been around those celebrations so I cannot really compare the two. After the parade, we went back to Darby’s house and dumped out the 2 bags (!) of goodies that we had collected from the parade. We met up with more of the group and wondered through the streets of Beuel, eventually crossing the bridge into Bonn. We continued to walk through the streets and take in the festivities. That evening, a group of us went out and celebrated some more. So many of the bars required you to pay to get in, but we found one that was free and playing good music. We squeezed our way in, and I literally mean squeezed because that place was packed, and danced for a while. It was a lot of fun and eventually we made our way back outside, where we broke out into a spontaneous singing of the only Karneval song we knew.

             The rest of our celebrations have been much more chill. Friday was a lazy day and then a late night spent with new German friends. Saturday and Sunday were very lazy day spent catching up on sleep (and maybe some Netflix). A couple of us from the program were also in the LiKüRa-Karneval-Parade on Sunday, where we helped the patients of the Therapy Center Beuel. It was a great experience to take part in a Karnival parade, and also to help out with the disabled patients. You could really see the joy that the parade brought them. This morning was a very early morning. Some of us decided that we wanted to go to Cologne for the Rosenmontag parade. It is supposed to be a very big deal and we just knew we couldn’t miss it. We were also told that if we didn’t get there early, we may not get on a train because it would be full or we wouldn’t get a good spot to watch the parade. So we sucked it up and got on the 8am train, which meant we had to get on the 7:15am bus. Once we got to Cologne, we walked around trying to find a good spot. By the time we got to a spot, we were probably an hour and a half early, so we held our ground and waited for the parade to start. Slowly more people joined us until the streets were extremely crowded. It was also so cold that I lost feeling in all of my toes and most of my feet shortly after the parade began. This parade was also full of people pelting us with lots and lots of candy. I am not sure how long the parade lasted, but since the majority of us had lost all feeling below the waist, we decided to leave and find somewhere indoors where we could thaw out. We went to a bar and had some Kölsch beer and then got some Currywurst from a food cart in the street. We spent a little more time in Cologne and then headed home to prepare for class to start again tomorrow. I’d say this was a pretty successful Karneval and we are already planning the Karneval we will bring to College Station next spring. Until then, Auf Wiedersehen!