When Americans think of dressing up in costumes, parading through the streets in search of parties, candy, and booze, usually Halloween is somewhere around the corner, and generally their activities are solely nocturnal. That is why the German festival of Karneval—or Carnival—is a holiday and celebration that I struggled adjusting to during my first stay in Germany. I came as a foreign exchange student in 2007, and although I quickly overcame my initial discomfort, as I dressed up as spinach for my friend’s Popeye float, drank, and partied like the rest of my German and Belgian friends, the festival still confused me.
For one, the parties and festivals are exhausting, spanning months instead of hours, and occurring all day, every day. This year, Karneval festivities occurred from Nov. 11, at 11:11 a.m. until Ash Wednesday, with the main festivities ending around Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), Feb. 20.
The festival originated as a tradition amongst the Romans, who hosted a festival during which the servants were master for a day. Its name derives from the Latin carne vale, or “meat – farewell.” However, I think of the modern-day version as a three-month long Halloween-and-Mardi Gras hybrid.
You might ask: what exactly does Karneval entail in the Nordrhein-Westfalen area of Germany, where I am currently living? Firstly, everyone and their mother dresses up in their best Halloween-esque apparel. I myself spent four hours today surrounded by pirates, ladies (and men) in dirndls, as well as families of superheroes, smurfs, cows, and cowboys. There is no element of surprise or ridicule, because everyone joins in.
In many of the stores I’ve visited, the shopkeepers also keep up with the Karneval theme by dressing up, decorating their stores accordingly, and playing and singing Karneval-specific German music. I encourage all German Studies students at Wes to check out Karneval videos on YouTube during their procrastination periods—after all, you might even see me belting out a song or two.
The festivities in Nordrhein-Westfalen reach a climax in February as the Karneval season comes to a close. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been invited to dozens of parties and was only able to attend a handful. I didn’t think I was getting old, but these parties are entirely too draining—Wesleyan’s pale in comparison. In addition to partaking in the random bouts of Karneval sing-song, the partying generally involves getting together with a group of friends at around noon in a train station with a case (or cases) of beer, then traveling to Karneval tents and activities set up in different cities in the Nordrhein-Westfalen region, where (lucky for me) Karneval is most popular. The tents are places for shameless dancing, partying, and more drinking. When my fellow revelers and I eventually found ourselves bored with one tent, we made our way, singing and drinking, to the train station to go to the next city.
Unlike the participation in Wes’ Tour de Franzia, hundreds of thousands of people partied all day every day from last Wednesday until yesterday. The celebratory mood is simply intoxicating, which adds to the effect from all the beer. However, this level of frivolity has its ridiculous and dangerous effects.
The fire fighters, called the Polizei, and the emergency ambulances have their hands full every year, especially in “the Karneval City” of Cologne and in other major festival cities. During Karneval, fights break out in the tents, on the streets, and on the trains as too many intoxicated individuals are packed into too-small spaces. Alcohol bottles, broken glass, and other waste fills the streets, making it difficult to travel by car or bike, as many Germans are wont to do. There are also the numerous men who relieve themselves in alleys or bushes and behind cars, trains, or buses, and a number of people who use the sidewalks, stairs in the train stations, and elsewhere as receptacles for vomit. Trains run late during Karneval because passengers must empty their bladder or their stomach contents onto the train platform.
On a lighter note, I’ve also seen instances of incredible generosity—bottles of liquor and cigarettes (as well as other less legal things) are happily shared with relative strangers during this freewheeling festival of foolishness.
As I’ve mentioned, Rosenmontag is the climax of these festive months. Despite the fact that Karneval is not a national holiday, schools are closed and many adults take the day off to celebrate. Rosenmontag is the day when the most Germans—even the elder family members—drink heavily and put on their fancy costumes. The major Karneval cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Bonn, and Mainz, as well as some others, host parades that include floats made by local groups that often address current political issues. One of my favorites was a sex-themed float involving Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, and Nikolas Sarkozy, the president of France. The float was titled “Merkozy,” and included a distorted, cartoonish Merkel half-naked with the head of a similarly distorted Sarkozy between her breasts. According to my German friends, this apparently represented German discontent with the recent German-French liaison in financially bailout of Greece.
The best part about these floats—and this is where the Halloween and Mardi Gras connection truly comes in—is that the people on the floats throw candy into the dancing and singing crowds. Generally, the children are encouraged to stand in the first few rows in order to get the best of the candy. I’m not going to lie or admit any shame; I did shove a few children out of the way today to get a Snickers.
A word of advice to future Karneval revelers: the louder you scream “Alaaf!” and “Helau!” (which are known as Schlachtrufe, or battle cries), the more Kamelle, or candy, you will have thrown to you. However, as my former host mom half-jokingly warned me yesterday, “Don’t accept any colorful red, green, or pink alcoholic shots…you could get roofied.”