Fasching Fun!

Hallo meine lieben Freunden!

As promised (quite a while ago, admittedly), here is another post to bring you up to date with my Deutschland antics! Before I launch into the wonder that is is Karnevalzeit, I'm going to tell you a little bit about when my parents and Grandma came to visit!

Typical to those living abroad, I massively craved some of the comforts of home such as cheddar cheese and blackcurrant squash, so my family's arrival was slightly overshadowed by the fact that they had bought me so many English goodies! (Though I am already out of squash! Sob. It was fun showing it to the North Americans, though, as they had never heard of it and thought that when I was going to get some squash, I was in fact fetching a large root vegetable... Anyway, I digress...) After all of this initial excitement, I was able to get on with a weekend filled with family time, which was lovely. On the Saturday we went to Heidelberg for the day and then on the Sunday, my nachhilfe student Rosi invited us all for dinner. It was a traditional German feast, including sauerkraut and knödel. Yum yum! It was a great evening and was a very nice end to the weekend.

[Pork with Sauerkraut and Knödel]

[Die Familie Eberwein und die Familie Forster]

After the excitement of a family visit, the next big thing to look forward to was Karneval. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this custom, it is a period of festivity that takes place just before the beginning of Lent. In Britain we have pancake day, whereas in Germany everyone gets absolutely hammered for about a week whilst dressing up in ridiculous costumes. Now, I've never taken drugs, but getting on a bus to go to school at 7am only to be greeted by der Froschkönig (the frog prince), Pippi Langstrumpf (Pippi Longstocking) and numerous bumblebees is what I imagine being high would be like. But of course you know what they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do (more like: when in Germany, put on a costume and get slaughtered), so the other ELA's and I donned our Dirndls (except from Tylor and Beth who went as a lumberjack and a sheep) and headed off to a Weiberfastnacht party at Beth's flat. Weiberfastnacht is the day during Karneval known as "women's day", which means that women have the right to cut off the end of men's ties and to kiss them. Unfortunately, none of us plucked up the courage to adhere to this custom, but we can always come back next year! Anyway, the party was a resounding success with much consumption of alcohol, especially the miraculous inventions that are Klopfers. These little beauties are small bottles of some type of fruit schnapps and each bottle has a number on the bottom. You have to bang the bottle on the floor or wall the number of times listed on the bottom of your bottle, put the cap of the bottle on your nose and down it without using your hands. Great fun, but lethal. Let's just say that the journey home was a little hazy that night!

[Party Time! Weiberfastnacht]

[Beth and I with our Klopfers]

[Marianne and I once the Klopfers had kicked in!]

On the Sunday, Gunjan and I set off for Mainz where we were going to meet up with Beth, Tylor and Whitney for the Rosenmontag parade. Coincidentally we bumped into Whitney and Tylor on the train, so we enjoyed the very scenic train ride from Koblenz to Mainz with them and an old German man sitting behind us, who had a hand puppet and made us a balloon animal with a smiley face on it. We weren't sure whether he was just a bit mental or whether he was doing it for Karneval. I'd like to think it's the latter, but you never know! When the man had alighted and after we had a closer look at the balloon, we decided to name it "Onkel Adi" (short for Adolph), due to the slightly questionable moustache.

The next day was Rosenmontag and Gunjan and I made our way to Mainz to meet the others for the parade. If I thought that it was weird seeing Pippi Langstrumpf on the bus was 7am, then Mainz at Karneval is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. In 10 minutes, I saw nine people dressed as bananas, two as carrots, one as the incredible hulk and a massive group of parrots. I can't quite describe to you what the atmosphere is like, but put it this way; people who weren't wearing a costume looked out of place. This only got more pronounced as we headed towards the place where the parade would take place. The streets were lined with people of all ages wearing every type of costume imaginable. The parade started at 11.11am and as the floats went past, everyone shouts "HELAU!" and they throw sweets. After a period of not getting any sweets thrown at us, I resorted to shouting "Helau! HELAU! OIIII!", but even that was unsuccessful. Our luck changed later on whilst we were in Tylor's friend's apartment overlooking the street and got the people on the float to try and throw sweets through the windows, though we had to be careful. Taking a chocolate bar to the head can be extremely painful!

[Whitney and I during the Rosenmontag Parade]

Not only did the floats throw sweets, but some also gave out political messages. One that stuck out in my mind was the float resisting the expansion of Frankfurt airport. We also saw one on the TV from the Dusseldorf Karneval of the Greek president drawing a Hitler moustache on Angela Merkel! Not exactly politically correct if you ask me, though having said that, they did have people who had "blacked up" in the Mainz Karneval! There were also lots of bands playing and quite a few of the people participating wore masks. Some of the masks were quite scary. Apparently this is because many years ago they used masks like this to scare the evil spirits out of the city. The scary mask wearing people also picked random people up (usually girls) and ran down the street with them. Hilarious for us, but not so much for the victims. Luckily we were able to escape this particular Karneval tradition. Speaking of Karneval traditions, they have a variety of songs that are played during Karnevalzeit, all of which are ridiculously catchy and were blasted the entire time of the parade! A few favourites of mine were the Döner Song (Ich hab 'ne Zwiebel auf dem Kopf, ich bin ein Döner/I have an onion on my head, I'm a Doner Kebab), Viva Kolonia, Schatzi schenk mir ein Foto and Allein in Amsterdam. They are all epic tunes so if you haven't heard them before, get on YouTube and blast them out!

[One of the political floats]

[Scary masks]

An extremely organised bout of German efficiency followed the parade, in which the road was swamped with street cleaners, leaf blowers and general clearer-uppers to combat the mess that had been produced during the last 4 hours. What do the Germans do after that, I hear you ask? Well here's your answer... They party some more! We headed off to the main city centre where a massive street party was happening. There were two massive stages playing music and a few fairground rides. Gunjan and I didn't stay for too long, but the others sounded like they had a great night!

Returning to Trier was a subdued affair. Karneval being over combined with tiredness was a bit of a downer, but I soon perked up when Marianne, Beth and I made pancakes in honour of the British tradition of Shrove Tuesday. We made way too many for just the three of us, but it was worth it. A perfect end to a great weekend!

[Pancakes in Trier]

Sadly, this week we are saying "Auf Wiedersehen" to two of our Language assistant chums; Marianne and Emma. They will be sorely missed. We'll have a beer in honour of you at future Schnitzelabends, girls! (Except I won't because I've given up alcohol for lent, but it's the thought that counts, right?)

I shall leave it there for now because you know what they say:

Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei. (Everything has an end, only the sausage has two.)

Bis Bald,




Bel xxx

P.S. Also, I learnt a cool new word: Muffel. - Translates as "Grump" z.B. Ich bin ein Morgensmuffel!

P.P.S. Does having a P.S. at the end of my post mean that, like a sausage, it has two ends?!