Rosenmontag
Alaaf!
So I'm way slow in getting this post up but that's life.
Anyho! Monday (Rosenmontag) was the peak of Karneval in this part of Germany, and the pinnical of all Karneval parades (Umzug auf Deutsch) is the Rosenmontag parade in Koeln. It starts at 11:11, the parade route is about 5 miles long, ends at the Dom (cathedral), and goes on for hours. I traveled up to Koeln in the morning with Susanna. We arrived about the time the parade started but decided to wait for it near the Dom because it was a convenient place to meet two of her friends who were traveling up from Stuttgart. Unfortunetly it was cold and snowed on and off, and we quickly froze. We waited on a pedestrian bridge overlooking the street. It was a great spot because the parade came straight at us and then had to turn before reaching the bridge, and we were in the front row. We paid for this great spot by having to wait 3 hours before the parade reached us. The wait wasn't so bad because every person who traveled through the main train station had to go by us, and there was a stage just up the street with a commentator and Karneval music. By this point I'd started to pick up on some of the songs and could mumble along with. Eventually the Umzug reached us. Just like the "krewes" in New Orleans, there are many groups in Germany whose sole purpose is to prepare floats for Karneval. Each group had at least one float and a band wearing traditional (and silly looking) costumes.
Susanna and I only managed to make it through the first hour and a half or so before we were so cold and hungry we had to surrender our spots and go into the main train station. I grabbed a bit to eat, and we headed back out. We saw another 30 minutes or so before her friends were fed up with the parade, and we headed into a pub. It was of course completely full of happy people singing Karneval songs and drinking Koelsch. Meanwhile I got my first taste of trying to understand the dialects from southern Germany (Bayerisch and Schwaebisch) with little success. It was fun. We headed back to Bonn pretty early and looked for another party, but Bonn was pretty much quiet. So ended Rosenmontag.
Otherwise things are going ok. Work is unfortunetly going no where. I'm still having problems with my FFT and have no idea where to start to debug the thing. But I finally booked my trip to Bavaria. A week from Monday I'm going to Munich for four days and then going to Regensburg to visit a friend. I'm really looking forward to a vacation.
The weather's also turned cold here again. Spring can't come soon enough.
So I'm way slow in getting this post up but that's life.
Anyho! Monday (Rosenmontag) was the peak of Karneval in this part of Germany, and the pinnical of all Karneval parades (Umzug auf Deutsch) is the Rosenmontag parade in Koeln. It starts at 11:11, the parade route is about 5 miles long, ends at the Dom (cathedral), and goes on for hours. I traveled up to Koeln in the morning with Susanna. We arrived about the time the parade started but decided to wait for it near the Dom because it was a convenient place to meet two of her friends who were traveling up from Stuttgart. Unfortunetly it was cold and snowed on and off, and we quickly froze. We waited on a pedestrian bridge overlooking the street. It was a great spot because the parade came straight at us and then had to turn before reaching the bridge, and we were in the front row. We paid for this great spot by having to wait 3 hours before the parade reached us. The wait wasn't so bad because every person who traveled through the main train station had to go by us, and there was a stage just up the street with a commentator and Karneval music. By this point I'd started to pick up on some of the songs and could mumble along with. Eventually the Umzug reached us. Just like the "krewes" in New Orleans, there are many groups in Germany whose sole purpose is to prepare floats for Karneval. Each group had at least one float and a band wearing traditional (and silly looking) costumes.
Susanna and I only managed to make it through the first hour and a half or so before we were so cold and hungry we had to surrender our spots and go into the main train station. I grabbed a bit to eat, and we headed back out. We saw another 30 minutes or so before her friends were fed up with the parade, and we headed into a pub. It was of course completely full of happy people singing Karneval songs and drinking Koelsch. Meanwhile I got my first taste of trying to understand the dialects from southern Germany (Bayerisch and Schwaebisch) with little success. It was fun. We headed back to Bonn pretty early and looked for another party, but Bonn was pretty much quiet. So ended Rosenmontag.
Otherwise things are going ok. Work is unfortunetly going no where. I'm still having problems with my FFT and have no idea where to start to debug the thing. But I finally booked my trip to Bavaria. A week from Monday I'm going to Munich for four days and then going to Regensburg to visit a friend. I'm really looking forward to a vacation.
The weather's also turned cold here again. Spring can't come soon enough.
posted by laura s at 10:55 AM
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