First, let me explain the timeline of Karneval a little bit. You see, Karneval is not just one day, or even one week. Au contraire, the Karneval season officially begins on November 11th at 11:11am. For those of you keeping count, since Ash Wednesday usually falls sometime in late February, that makes Karneval season about two and a half months long. Sounds like a lot, but trust me, to celebrate Karneval the way the Germans do, you need a long time to prepare (or at least a long time to get your liver in shape for the "festivities.") I mean, lets be honest here, Karneval (like many holidays and festivals) is really just an excuse to drink. Not that the Germans need one. Anyways, there's some hoopla on November 11th, and then for the average person not a whole lot happens for the next couple months. But for the members of the Karneval clubs that I mentioned before, this is crunchtime for preparing their floats, costumes, and banners (and practicing their marching, drumming, fife-ing, etc.) The parade planners also kick into high gear, and the "Prince" and "Princess" of Karneval (each town usually has one) hold lots of events to raise money for the parade. So that basically sums up the preparation season.
As an aside, I should also quickly explain that Karneval is not a Germany-wide event. It only takes place in the heavily Catholic regions, namely the West (Rheinland) and South (parts of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria). Of the places that celebrate Karneval, Koeln is the New Orleans of Germany. Towns in the surrounding area (like Bonn) also have big celebrations, but in the South (where Karneval is actually called Fasching or Fastnacht) it's not quite such a to-do, though there are plenty of parties and parades. But the Koelner take their Karneval very seriously, as you will see in one of the next posts.
So, now to actual Weiberfastnacht. Weiberfastnacht is the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, and is actually one of the oldest Karneval traditions. "Weiber" is an older German word that means "women", and this day is based around the idea of women taking the power from the men. For example, in some towns (Koeln for example) the women "storm" city hall and kidnap the mayor (I guess they assume that the mayor is usually a guy). They literally hold him "hostage" for the day and that night there's a big party. Another tradition on this day is that the women are allowed to cut the tie of any man they see. They literally just take scissors and cut off part of his tie (I think they're allowed to cut shoelaces too, but those are a little harder to get to). When I first heard about this tradition I didn't quite believe that people actually still did that, but they really do. Pascal's dad works in Koeln, and he has an entire collection of old ties that he saves for Weiberfastnacht. I've never actually seen anyone do this so I still have a hard time picturing it (and I laugh every time I think about some poor random tourist or foreign business guy getting his tie cut off because he didn't know any better). So besides the tie-cutting, Weiberfastnacht is the first major day of Karneval celebrating. Everyone dresses up in costumes all day, and I mean everyone. I went grocery shopping in Bad Godesberg in the late morning on Weiberfastnacht and I felt out of place because I wasn't wearing a costume. At 11 in the morning! Older people especially get into the costume thing, which is absolutely hilarious. Nothing like seeing a 70-yr-old dressed up like a tarty witch. That's the quick and dirty explanation of Weiberfastnacht, so on to the pictures!
Free donuts at the Goethe-Institute! ------ The Americans. We're so holy.
Just getting in the costume spirit.
Watch out Daniel! Possibly my very favorite picture of all time (that's me in the mask, btw)
Can't you tell they're twins?
I did the make-up, thank you very much. Walid was an excellent Joker, possibly because he's seen the movie about 14 times.
At the restaurant. This (rather drunk) old guy insisted on drawing portraits of us and making us pay 5 euros for them, even though they were terrible.
Haha, I don't even know. -- Mohammed, the best cowboy ever
No comments:
Post a Comment