Viva Colonia... Karneval in Koeln!

Well this blog is a bit overdue, but better late than never. I will start out this blog by saying that since coming to Bonn, all I have heard about is Karneval. It is not all over Germany, it is basically just in Bonn, Cologne and Dusseldorf (to my knowledge). The Karneval season started on 11/11/11 and concluded the Tuesday before ash Wednesday, so in basic terms it is this area's version of Mardi Gras. So everyone is off of work and school basically from the Thursday to the Tuesday. Everyone dresses up in costumes and has parades (definite perk of German parades is that they throw German chocolate.... yummm) drinks copious amounts of Koelsch Beer, and sings Karneval songs. I will link 2 pretty-famous Karneval songs if anyone wants to here, I definitely heard both of these songs about 3 times a day during the duration of Karneval (they are really cheesy, but that seemed to be the trend of Karneval songs)

The second one that I posted is definitely the anthem of the Cologne Karneval.... I dont know if anyone will enjoy them, but just a taste of what everyone was singing.

So first things first was Thursday, which was Frauenkarneval, or women's carneval. Basically in Bonn, the women are allowed to cut off the men's ties as a sign of equality and anti-authority. But.... instead of staying in Bonn we went to Cologne. The trains were packed to the brim when we left at 10 am.

Here we are straight off of the train ride. Costume and all. My costume was "Fitness-Frau" which is not exactly a german word, but I loved the alliteration and so I was saying it all day long, much to the enjoyment of the Germans around me. 

The theme of Karneval this year was "Mehr Spass ohne Glas" which just means have more fun without glass... so leave it to the Germans to have a celebration also remind everyone to be environmentally friendly.

Once we got past the checkpoints, the streets were just packed with people, and this was not even the parade day. It was if the entire city had come out for the day to celebrate... which more likely than not was the case.

You cannot quite tell, but this person is wearing a Brown's jersey, so I made him to an O-H with me

And I had to take a picture with a Lederhosen man!

The following Monday we did a similar adventure back to Cologne to watch the parade

The weather, although really sunny, was really really cold... but everyone's spirits were high. Right now we are in front of the Dom and the train station and people were already congregating here and singing and dancing in the early part of the day

Here is a video of the parade a bit. To be honest I have not watched this video, but there should be some music in it and people singing and yelling. I definitely learned some words in the Koelsh dialect during Karneval. Kamelle is candy, which everyone yells when the floats pass!

Some sassy Germans next to us did not want us getting any of the chocolate, so whenever we managed to get a piece it was so thrilling!

The crowds were sooo big, I felt as if we must be in the most crowded part of the city, but we actually were at one of the least dense areas.

By about 3 or 4 we were already pooped and had to take a break from the crowds for a bit. Rest our voices too from all of the singing ;)

This guy wins the award for me of the best costume I saw all weekend, although I did see a lot of... eh, creative we will say, costumes

Here are pictures of odds and ends from the weekend

Look on the light post and you will see a man perched on top

If you are maybe wondering what the tattoos on my face are (they are permanent of course), that is the symbol of Cologne. As I learned with the rest of my family, the 3 crowns are the 3 kings (as in the biblical ones) and the 11 tears are the 11 women who did something important of which I cannot remember at this moment in time.

 Our Karneval vantage point

people were EVERYWHERE

Me being happy in front of the Dom

Curious.... curious indeed

Here is a nice picture of a lot of the people who I went with

goofy train track photo

This is a good view of the entire street packed with people (although it was on Thursday, so not as crowded)

I feel like this picture says it all... we are hip, we are cool, we are celebrating Karneval.

A quick side. It is a tradition in Europe to eat pancakes on Fat Tuesday, which also happens to be international pancake day (who knew?) so it was a nice way to end the weekend. We all hung out in an apartment and made pancakes all afternoon!

Like I said yesterday, expect silence from me for a little bit now, but I will talk to you again after Portugal! 

Biking in Bonn!

Today me and a group of friends rented a bike and cycles approx 26 km according to google maps. It was one of the sunniest days of this spring/winter weather we are having, and at 55 degrees it was a great day for a bike to koenigswinter!

I was the only photographer, so pictures of me are limited

I guess the best way to do this is to narrate you through our day! we started in the Hofgarten of the University

Then made our way across the Kennedy bridge to Beuel

^on bridge

Then we headed southbound along the river!

and made funny faces!

...And posed for pictures

...and zig zagged the trees

Took a few breaks every now and again to chill out by the water. This is the Rhein on the southern edge of Bonn. You can see the Siebengebierge in the background and blue skys for miles.

classic Christen pose now

Then we went under an overpass

and down a hill!

Here is Bruna and Miguel having a blast!

Then we biked along this really old graffiti wall

And then back along the river.... it started to look like rain....

then everyone made weird faces again

Then I lead the pack!

And the sun came back out!! we stopped at a little beach strand that extended into the Rhein

And I made everyone jump.... again

Then I took a series of pensive pictures: Bruna looking pensive

Taylor looking pensive

Barrett looking pensive...

and back on the road we went

until.......

Koenigswinter coffee break

mine was delicious because it had chocolate ice cream in it!

and then we sunbathes for about 45 minutes.... vitamin C all around!

(^that is not me smoking, just so we are clear whose hand that is)

then Taylor tried to bike home with an ice cream cone..... it didnt work out so well

...his bike broke

The sun was setting on a cloudless sky

We took a break to throw rocks in the river, like the defiant, angst-ridden twenty-somethings that we are!

and then it was a competition

Paige gives us her best pose

and then we do a timed picture

and then we wrote each other love notes in the sand

was ist passiert? just hanging out

I kept this picture in because the sky and sunset look so cool

Okay so then we all went to a different park a little bit closer to Bonn, and take a look at the view..... dont mind our weird pose..... 

here is us in the Rheinaue, look! we have no bodies!

and her is some sort of German zen garden.... people were too eerily quiet, so we left pretty quickly

Here we are! back in front of the University.

Okay so that was my day today! Some other updates... there is a Karneval blog still in the works... I am still in the process of gathering pictures from other people. Also I will be headed to Portugal in 2 days, so i will obviously not be blogging during that time (until the 17th). I have been in the library a lot and that is why you havent been hearing from me as much as you all think you should be.... but there are some gems coming up. I am calling this month "March Madness" (creative ne?) because it could go down in history as the best month ever. First portugal, then friends from home are visiting me, and then Paris..... wow is all I can say to that. 

Also, the bus and train workers are on strike tomorrow.... weird