Kamelle, kamelle

Completely off topic...

Helau and allaaf!!! I've been preparing for this for weeks now and finally we have reached the climax of the "5th season" aka karneval. While I am still struggling with a sinus infection or whatever I refused to let this get into my way of celebrating the best season of all.
While I do not really celebrate Altweiber much, I still enjoy the parades. Parades in itself are a pretty absurd thing for strangers to the playful customs in Rhineland: people of all ages (adults mostly hammered) get dressed up in fancy dresses and go out on the streets to watch a parade of dressed up people on foot or in creative wagons, who throw mainly sweets into the crowds. But it is free sweets... Oh I love it!
That said I drove to the cologne area on Friday. Again some explanation is required: I grew up mainly in a town right in between Düsseldorf and cologne, the two biggest players (followed by Mainz) in karneval. So I got to see parts of both worlds and I have to say I prefer the cologne. Why, you might wonder. I realized something when it comes to rival cities. There seems to be something in common with the rivalry. Often, I believe, one city is more elegant or fancy while the other is more the “working class” area. I’ve seen it in Dublin (inner-city rivalry), Edinburgh/Glasgow and Düsseldorf/Cologne too. I usually prefer the less posh but more fun cities. This also shows in karneval: When I look at Düsseldorfs’ costumes and parade it seems to be rather sophisticated, elegant but reserved. Cologne on the other hand is colourful, loud and sometimes a bit over the top (sounds a bit like myself).
Moving on with storytelling time: We arrived in my home town on Friday but did not really do anything exciting (walking the dog, shopping, and pizza). The first highlight of this weekend was Saturday where we went to Leichlingen. This brings back a lot of old memories! Unfortunately, the Leichlinger parade is not what it used to be. It was way smaller (or maybe I just have gotten bigger). Afterwards we met with one of my oldest friends, who is due to pop in a week and her belly looks like she is going to give birth to twins. I am looking forward to the announcement of the name they have chosen for the child as they will not tell anyone before the baby has seen the first light of day.
Sunday was the most successful day. We went to the Schul- und Veedelzoch in Cologne. I really like this because it is not as crowded as the “Rosenmontagszug” (Shrove Monday Parade) and as the name suggests is for the schools and Veedel (districts). This year we had about 55 schools walking in the parade and 48 Veedel-groups (these are associations and clubs and what nots). The costumes were amazing the wagons really creative and we went home with a full bag of sweets.
Afterwards we visited another friend of mine and her relatively young dog. He is really not the best example for someone with a fear of dogs. We finished the day of at a local burger place with vegan falafel burger and sweet potato fries followed by apple strudel with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.
Rosenmontag my cold cought up with me and I was physically not able to go to the next parade. But I did but on my make-up regardless because I enjoy dressing up too much… As we had enough sweets for the team I did not mind too much and was glad to have a quiet day