Week... the week of Karneval

We got back from our first excursion followed by a weekend in Hungary with a rather short week. This was not an average week however; this was the week of Karneval. If Mardi Gras and Halloween had a child, it would be Karneval. Costumes, candy, alcohol, and partying define Karneval’s lively vibe. The days leading up to Karneval were filled with, “what should I dress up as?’, “should I just put something together?”, and “what are you dressing up as?” as everyone was gathering their Karneval costumes. We scoured Bonn looking for cheap, but decent costumes and we eventually found our costumes. I decided to rediscover my Native American roots, Mitchell took the DeLorean back to the 70’s, and Jack joined the Mexican drug cartel. We then all went home to sleep to prepare for this wild weekend that was approaching.

Karneval was here, which means no school! Everyone met at AiB in costume and it was so fun to see everyone soaking in the German culture. We learned some helpful German words as well, such as ‘Alaaf’ and ‘Camella’ (it’s not spelled this was, but every time we said it I thought of Camella’s name, so we’re gonna stick with this). I have no clue what those words actually mean, but when we yelled them out candy was thrown our way, so I was content. We walked over to Beuel were the parade was parading and it seemed like the entire city of Bonn was there. We walked down the street until we came across a spot that was fairly empty and we asserted ourselves into that slot. Then came the party. During the parade, we all jumped around, yelling and dancing. We even met some older ladies who shared alcohol and chocolates with us! It was a very fun and cultural experience to see people from age 6 to 86 all partying in the streets, just simply filled with joy. Then the parade ended, but the party did not. We walked around the Beuel area and we came across an area that had a stage with music and everybody was dancing, so naturally we joined in the commotion. We danced, we sang, we stole… we actually didn’t steal anything. We met some “interesting” people in some “interesting costumes” that may or may not have been politically incorrect, but hey, who am I to judge how they approach Karneval. After hours of dancing and screaming we all decided that we were pretty tired, so we went our separate ways for the rest of the afternoon to rest before the night life started up.

We all met up at the local hotspot, McDonalds, and we went on our way to find a bar to go into. However, our search seemed futile as almost every bar had a cover fee that we were not about to pay, but we eventually found a small bar that was free entrance. We made our way in and it was super crowded. The air was stagnating and it was pretty gross, but we powered through and found some open space. We then danced the rest of the night away in the bar. After that we all went home to prepare for the next day.

Karneval may be all about partying, but for Mitchell, Kate, Nicky, and I, we decided that we couldn’t party for four days straight, so we went hiking in the Siebengebirge (the seven mountains). We all met up and took the tram to our hiking destination. We then started our hike and made our way up one of the many trails. We found ourselves at the top and we saw a magnificent view over Bonn and the Rhein. Well, where we went was the “top” but it was the highest point we could go to without breaking the rules, which we should have just broken the rules. But we didn’t. So we got to what to us was the “top” and made our way back down and when we got back down we called it for the day and went home.

Mitchell was throwing up. Not from alcohol. He was sick. Like real sickness. It was sad. Really sad. We all met up in Friedensplatz the next night, just to walk around for a bit then went to a house. We had a rather relaxed night, just all hanging out together, avoiding the cold. It was a nice night.

The next day was Mitchell’s birthday. Mitchell was still throwing up. Not from alcohol. He was still sick. Like still real sickness. It still was sad. Still really sad. We went to a parade in Ramersdorf and it was nice. We then went home to eat cakes and sweets with our host family for Mitchell’s birthday. We then all went out that night, but nobody was out so we all went home.

Rosenmontag has arrived and a few of us made our way to Köln for the big parade. It was massive and crazy and fun. It was similar to the Beuel parade but 1000000000x larger and more stuff was going on. After the parade we all went home and wrapped up our nice four day weekend.