I live around thirty miles south of Cologne (more commonly known as Köln in Germany). Cologne is famous for one thing that comes in February: Karneval. I'm sure you've all heard of Carnival in Brazil -- and it's basically the same thing with more clothing, as it's freezing in Germany in February. From Thursday on was Straßenkarneval, or street Karneval. I guess I'll do a day-to-day explanation, as that's the only way I can think of to properly explain.
Thursday: This was the major party day in my school. Every class had to come up with some sort of dance performance, which I of course did with my class. And then, Erandy (Mexico), Vedashree (India) and I (you'd better know where I come from) decided to do a little "Tricultural Dance", which can hopefully be seen by you lovely readers here. (Sorry if it doesn't work, one of the other Americans posted it and it doesn't work in Germany. Should work in the US, though). The three of us wore cultural outfits, too (as Karneval is a time for costumes). So I wore a cowgirl dress, Erandy wore traditional Mexican garb, and Veda wore what I think is a sari. It was something Indian, at the very least. Oh, and if you're friends with me on Facebook, you can also see it there. Anyway, we all had our little pieces of cultural dance. I, being American, of course chose Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Vedashree chose Jai Ho (from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, listen to it!) and Erandy did the Macarena. We were the last to perform -- and apparently they all LOVED it! We were even called back to do it again. It was amazing performing in front of so many people, and the atmosphere was wild. But does this mean I'll be doing more of the like in the U.S.? Probably not :P. But anyway, that was basically Thursday.
Friday: Not much goes on during the day in Karneval -- only parades and suchlike. I didn't go to a parade on Friday. Instead, I headed to David's house (David is the other American exchange student, if you don't already know) and we watched an episode of Mythbusters before being picked up by Kevin. We headed to McDonald's and waited for Kevin to return with some other people so we could go to Steffis, the only disco in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Vedashree also came with a couple other Germans. We finally got to the door, but... the door guard wouldn't let us in, even though we had legitimate ID's with our birthdays on them. Why? We didn't have a German Personalausweis (a German's main ID card). I guess he didn't believe that we were exchange students, or just really hated foreigners. Anyway, we tried getting in twice, but it didn't work. So we just went and sat in a restaurant/bar for awhile until we got bored and went home. I slept at another exchange student's house, because where I live is the furthest away from Bad Neuenahr. So not extremely exciting, but it was still fun enough.
Saturday: This was probably the best day I've had so far during Karneval (but don't hold your breath, as there are still two and a half days left!). My host family and I went to Holzweiler (local village) for a parade. The amount of food and stuff thrown to the crowds is INSANE; my host family alone collected something like three bags full of stuff. I even got a slice of pizza and a lighter. Yeah. Cool, no? Anyway, it was freezing cold and I was kinda glad to get back inside. Then, a couple hours later, I headed over to my old host family's house, where Vedashree now lives. After awhile, we got ready to go to the party in Heimersheim (another local village), which was apparently the hot spot for that night. Veda got her hands on a German dirndl (dress thingy) for 1 €, so she of course wore that. She also braided her hair and with her sparkly makeup looked absolutely adorable. I took a completely different route, choosing a Barbie theme as my costume. Oh, by the way, I'm also strawberry blonde now. It was fun, though, because as you all know, Barbie is definitely not my style. I wore entirely too much makeup, and had ridiculously high heels that I knew I would regret wearing later. I'm pretty sure the heel was between 4 and 6 inches, but hey, they looked awesome. We got to the party (which was surprisingly free), and immediately realized that it was PACKED. I'm talking, you can hardly move two inches without hitting someone. Anyway, we found friends fairly quickly, despite so many people being there. It was fun -- the music was so loud that one couldn't speak and be heard, so all there was to do was dance. Easy enough, right? Well, I did regret wearing those heels (my feet still hurt today, twelve hours later). I was extremely lucky that Vedashree is a complete angel and let me switch shoes with her every once in awhile. Anyway, we stayed fairly late, and finally went back to Veda's house with a taxi. And then crashed. Around six hours at such a party is pretty much exhausting.
So, then, that's a recap of my last few days. Today, I'm heading up to Cologne, Karneval central, to see one of my friends who's also an exchange student. I'm pretty excited, although slightly sad I'll miss the parties here in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler with my friends. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have fun anyway.
Hope you guys aren't too sick of the snow there. Love and miss you all.
Liebe Grüße
Signe
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