5. Karneval

If Mardi Gras and Halloween had a baby it would be Karneval. Karneval is a big celebration with parades and everyone is dressed up in costumes. Basically, everyone dresses up and parties in the streets, you get candy and flowers and sometimes alcohol thrown at you from the floats in the parades. It is pretty interesting because it is also a time when as my host dad says “nothing and no one is above being made fun of” so some of the floats are political, there was one with Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. We also saw people in black face, which was awful, but Germans don’t seem to find it inappropriate. We all went to the Beuel parade on Thursday which was really fun even in the cold. We met some really sweet 80 year old ladies that were out paryting, they gave us shots and alcohol and danced with us, it was a blast. We took a break from the partying and me Mitchell, Cory and Nicky went hiking at the 7 hills again, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that view. Sunday we went to the Ramersdorf parade and we headed into Cologne on Monday for the main parade, it was insane. People were everywhere and everyone was in a great mood. Some people even lowered umbrellas out of their apartment windows on the parade route to catch candy and alcohol. It was a really cool experience, but looking back I wish we had taken the opportunity to travel, I think one parade day was enough for me, but it was still a really fun weekend.