Karneval Fiesta

KÖLLE

ALAAF

Non. Stop. Action.

I am starting to think that in the next few months I will be trying to get so much done and experience so many new things that I won’t have any time to write in here at all. Of course I will try my hardest to squeeze in enough time for a quick post, because otherwise I will lose all of my memories of the most important part of my year; the home stretch. Now I wouldn’t quite say I am in the final stretch of my year, but I am now past half way and all past exchange students say the same thing, the last four months fly by the quickest. I find it hard enough to believe that time can fly quicker than it already has, but with that knowledge, I had better get as much done as I possibly can.

           

It is the end of a long season here, a season which, just like every other German tradition, is well defined by drinking. Karneval (or Faschings) goes way back. It started before Catholicism in this region, under Roman rule. There was a long season comprised of drinking and music and celebration of everything and anything. When Catholicism was spread throughout the Rhineland, they did not want to take away this tradition from the people, so they created Karneval, which is still today, a season celebrated only in primarily Catholic regions. 

The season begins on the 11^th of November at 11:11AM and goes until Ash Wednesday, taking a bit of a break at Christmas. It is a season in the Catholic Calendar, popularly referred to as the Fifth Season, followed by Lent. Unfortunately it is not largely celebrated in Wuppertal, being a primarily Protestant city, but the main region of celebration is along the Rhine River. The three main Karneval hotspots are Köln (Huge, Dangerous, Messy), Düsseldorf (Large, Organized, Colorful), Mainz (Tidy, Political, Organized). I just happened to be in Köln (or Cologne in English) where over 1.5 million people flood the streets to watch the parade and feel the unity in celebration. Of course all tourists who want the ‘real’ Karneval experience go to Cologne for expensive beer, huge crowds, and international partying with dressed up strangers.

I started with a small group of exchange students, and slowly we gained more and more, merged with other exchange student groups, and picked up Germans on the way. By the end we were about 20 to 30 people, primarily Latin Americans, and Germans who spoke Spanish. There was glass, confetti, and garbage in the streets covering every inch. All of the real ‘Kölner’ hide in their own corners of the city, and surrounding the Central Train Station and the Cathedral are the masses of tourists. Everyone is dressed up. There is a parade through the whole city where the crowds made up of kids, parents, and guests surround the bands and wagons and yell ‘Karmella’ which basically means Candy, and the people in the Parade throw candy into the crowd. This parade is on different days depending on where you are, but in Köln, Düsseldorf, and Mainz it is on Rosenmontag (Rose Monday). In smaller cities and towns the parades tend to be on Saturday or Sunday so that they can still attract people and don’t have to compete with the larger cities. On Sunday February 19^th, AFS organized a day trip to Brühl, a town outside of Cologne, where we took part in the parade and threw about two seven pound bags of candy per person into a yelling and singing crowd. We were about twenty-five people, and after about half of the Parade, we were out of candy and it had already been three hours. The people surrounded us and we would throw the candy into the crowds, into open windows, and into the little kid’s bags. All of us were dressed up in the colors and flags of our home country, becoming a sort of internationally representing group. At Rosenmontag we actually attended a party which was underground, below the Train Station, in a decrepit room, which was likely broken open. There was an awesome DJ who set up and made the speakers shake the smoke hanging in the air. The room was stuffed out the door, with literally more people outside than inside, probably about 200 people, who spontaneously were attracted to a broken down room, drawn in by ground shaking dubstep.

On the whole, Karneval was a fantastic experience. I had never been to a party with over a million people, where you can literally not move due to drunken people squished up against you in elaborate costumes, but I don’t think many people have. :)

One of the other important things that have happened since my last post is my CBYX Halbzeitkamp (Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Mid-Stay Camp). For one week, I got to miss school and go to Bad Honnef, which is near Bonn, and about an hour away from me here in Wuppertal, to meet up with half of the 48 or so scholars who I was with in Washington DC before I left. It was wonderful to see them again, and we did day trips to Köln, where I have been many times, as you can tell, and Bonn, which is apparently the city where my Grandparents went to College and fell in love. Bonn used to be the Capital of Germany, as West and East Germany were two separate countries, but now it is back to being Berlin. Bonn is still a beautiful old city, with a lot of important buildings, including a United Nations Center. In both Köln and Bonn we went through museums and had tours in the daytime, and then we explored the city a bit on our own. I even discovered an English Shop, where they sell products from England and America, mainly food and drinks. If people in America saw that a box of Lucky Charms was 10 euros ($13.20) they would probably have a heart attack. I suppose it is a pretty easy way to make money, and the whole area around the store is English, as if all of a sudden when you turn a corner you walked into London with all of the groups standing around speaking English. I don’t hear English very often in Germany, but when I do, it is almost always in Cologne.

Well it has been a nice period of time here in Germany. I have found a rhythm here that I am happy with. My schedule has started to become regular and relatively unchanging, with the weekends always open for the occasional (more like frequent) movie, travel or party. School is settling into a normal place of study, where homework and test are becoming more routine and easy. All I have to do know is resist from buying myself a Döner or a bag of Quark Bällchen every time I have time in the city. I am still discovering new things about the Culture, the society, and the people, and I hope to do a lot of very important things and learn a lot in the next four months. I will be on the plane home before I know it, and I have to continue utilizing my year here, because I will never have these opportunities ever again.

To a Happy, Healthy, Enlightening Four More Months!