Karneval is a big deal in the Rhine region around Aachen. We have been looking forward to it for quite some time, peppering co-workers with all sorts of questions about what kind of costumes to wear, where are the best parades etc. It turns out that most of the people we asked actually don’t like Karneval much. Many people described it just as drunken debauchery. Nevertheless, we decided to try it out for ourselves.
Thursday is known as Fat Thursday, which means eating lots of Berliner – jelly filled doughnuts. At 11:11 at my workplace there was a whole buffet of them. The kids got out of school at 11:11 after a bunch of partying at school, with no homework for the break. At 11:11 the women of the town typically take over the city hall. There is also a tradition of the women cutting off the ties of the men. Meg made me a paper tie just for the occasion. Interestingly enough, no one at work cut off my tie, so Clare did that evening.
Friday we took a day off from Karneval. Saturday we went to the Neanderthal museum which is near Düsseldorf. We enjoyed learning about our closely related ancestors near where their fossils were first discovered. Afterwards we went to Düsseldorf to check out the Karneval scene there and get some Asian food (Düsseldorf has a large Asian population). We enjoyed seeing all the different costumes. We did see some drunken unruliness, but not too much.
Sunday we went to the parade in Würselen. It’s nice that we can just walk there. The parade started at 12:30, but we met some friends and neighbors near the end of the parade, so it didn’t actually reach there until almost 2 p.m. There were quite a few nice floats pulled by large tractors, lots of candy, and several bands. It was very nice.
Oh, and “alaaf” is what you say around Karneval time. It is sort of a greeting, plus also just a fun thing to say when you are at the parade and want to get some candy hurled to you. That is, unless you’re from Düsseldorf, where they say “helau”. And of course Düsseldorf and Köln are rivals, so you shouldn’t say “helau” in Köln, or “alaaf” in Düsseldorf. One of our neighbors had constructed a little mobile party wagon, with a place for several cases of beer, a built-in bottle opener, and a boombox for playing party music. And it also had a sticker with “helau” crossed out on it.
Alaaf, Fedibbletey Family! Happy Carneval!