Karneval in Koln

Karneval kick off was on November 11, a month after we arrived. We tried to participate on that day. The General Manager of the Pullman Hotel where many of us were living at the time gave us some background and took us out on that day to experience the start of Karneval. It was a huge day that began at 11:11 am and continued all day and night with costumes, kolsh (beer), singing, live music, and partying. We couldn’t imagine it was to get bigger, but we now have more perspective on the subject. That was purely a taste of what was to come!

Every weekend after January 1^st there are parties throughout the city of Cologne. They all seem to encourage participants to be in costume. Some of the costumes are traditional military style suits with men in white wigs and all. Others are people dressed up with a wide variety of costumes similar to Halloween. The weekend parties go on and on with food, beer, music, and traditions. The costumes are not gory, but there is a wide variety. Then venues can be ballrooms at the big hotels or I imagine small parties as well, but we only witnessed the hotel extravaganzas.

Five days before Ash Wednesday the real Karneval begins with daily events and again – costumes.

The first of the five days is when the mayor turns the keys of the city over to the women of the town (at 11:11am). Women all over town are out in costume. They carry scissors and cut the ties of any males they see. I didn’t witness this happening, but despite the rain there were thousands of people out and about partying. On November 11^th it was confined to the center of the city. This time the party was in many areas including the square by our house which I didn’t discover until I came back from being out with my American girlfriends (yes, we were dressed up) in the center of the city. 

Everyone walks around in costume off and on for theses 5 days (and for weekends from January 1st until now). No one even looks twice – this past week you would have stuck out if you were out without one. The funny thing is they don't take off wigs or hats, etc. the entire time. The party I went to on Saturday night (with a friend because her husband was ill and these tickets are hard to come by - she has a German family friend with connections) was at a big hotel and there were 5000 people in this place. There was a large stage with live bands that played from 6-2:30 am!!! The funniest part was that everyone was in costume and no one takes off any part of the costume even in the midst of dancing, singing, swaying, and eating. I think of being home and taking parts of my costume off to travel home from school on Halloween. That doesn't happen here. You dress at home and hop on the subway and go about your life.   

On Saturday morning Bob and I were out early to take a first aide class for our drivers license (another story!) and it was canceled because of Karneval (not noted on the website) so we stopped for coffee. As we were sitting there we looked around this restaurant and over half the restaurant was eating breakfast in costume at 9 am. There was a man behind me reading the paper, sitting alone in a polar bear costume (he was about 40 years old). He did pull the hood down, but the weird part was no one was even taking notice of him. Next to him were 2 girls of about 30 sitting eating. One was dressed as a bumblebee and the other a fairy with glitter and paint all over her face! Very funny. No one is self-conscious at all (except the Americans!). It is people of all ages participating. The older couples are usually dressed alike or with a theme, which is always cute. There was an 80-year-old man sitting at our party table Saturday night - he had on a red striped tee, big loud bow tie with an elastic around his neck, and a tiny clown hat with the elastic around his chin. He didn't take either the tie or hat off all evening.

The Saturday Night Ball attended by 5000 people. This was one of many around the city.

The Ballroom from a different perspective.

Sunday was a huge Children’s Parade. Children were in the parade with school groups. Each group dressed up in coordinating costumes. Right outside our apartment there were groups assembling on our street used as a staging area. One school group was dressed as chicks. On their heads was a half of an eggshell hat made from paper mache. The costumes are creative and handmade not store bought. Really neat to see all the clever ideas. The chicks marched with a car that had a huge handmade nest on top of it. There were about 5 streets that all these groups were set up on before the parade began to feed into the street where the parade began. It was hours long and the parade route was 7 kilometers long. 

The horns on this float were filled with fresh flowers. There is no one on top as it was early in the morning before the parade began.

Political Satire Floats

This lady was ready to go at 10:30. We saw her start at the entrance of the parade at 2pm.

These are bags of smaller bags of candy that gets tossed at the crowd. This was being loaded into the back of a float. Mind you they toss candy for the whole parade which ended up being 5 or 6 hours of moving through the city.

On Monday was the Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) Parade (pictures above and below). The parade started 2 blocks from our apartment and had the same route as the parade yesterday. We watched for 2 1/2 hours, went to lunch, came back and there were still floats waiting on Sachsenring Road for as far as you can see that had to BEGIN yet! It really was awesome and hard to describe. I will try - 1 million spectators, 10,000 participants, 124 bands, 440 horses, 150 tons of candy and 220,000 candy bars being thrown (literally) at the spectators, and 300,000 small bouquets of flowers (which I have 5). Floats are designed for the group they are with and have a patriotic feel, then there are floats that are very political in nature (even though I can't read exactly what they are saying, but I get the gist), and lots of band groups playing music constantly. I am home now and can still hear the music loud and clear two blocks away. On top of that everyone is in costumes whether marching, playing instruments, watching, or on floats. It is not 3:15 and this started at 10:30 this morning! I am thinking it can't go on much longer, but you never know. Non-stop activity without any breaks between groups.

Cute Puppets

Costumed musicians who still played strong even with the heavy masks.

This was a float about the US economy.

Learning German and Getting Ready for our Driving Exam

As we drive around in our rental car I have the driver's test study book on my lap. As Bob says they do love their signage here!!! We need a camera to post a picture of our newest favorite, but that will come soon. I can't spoil it by telling about it. A picture is worth a thousand words.

We have about 400 different signs to learn for the driving test (written exam). So as we drive I am flipping through the pictures trying to find the meaning of all the signs. Not an easy task. At some intersections we have seen as many as 8 different signs! Wish us luck. We have six months from the day we arrive to get the written and behind the wheel test done. If not we can't drive. Since we bought a car this week and take delivery next week it has become the new priority in our house.

In conjunction with this I am trying hard to learn some German. It is not easy that is for sure, but I keep trying. Today I saw my favorite word of the day - Krankenwagon!!! It was on an ambulance that drove by us. There is also a Krankenhaus and Corey is a Krankenschwester! You are a bit cranky when you are sick so I love these words. Easy to remember and actually fun to say.

Our First Visitor

Corey arrived as our first overnight visitor! She came to Cologne in the coldest week we have had all winter, but we still managed to get outside and walk around the city. It was fun to show her all we had talked about when we were home.

We needed to buy a wide angle lens just to get this photo!

On her first day we braved a walk down the river to the Dom. It was warmer inside the cathedral even though there is no heat! A must for visitors is lunch across the street at Cafe Reichard. I will always remember sitting there in the first weeks of our move - you are facing the front of the Dom which is incredibly massive, sipping a glass of wine (outside when it is warmer), and feeling you are in a dream. She didn't get quite that effect in freezing weather eating inside, but it is still a cool place to have a bite.

One of my favorite days was the day Shane Morris joined us (from Frankfort). Another cold one - we had lunch at the chocolate factory which has delicious desserts. Bob joined us for dessert too. We each chose something different and mine ended up being the winner.

We did brave the cold walk home and stayed warm in the apartment until evening. Marita (our relocation specialist) joined us for dinner out. I was so glad Shane and Corey were here to meet her. They said she reminded them of Mary Poppins. Never thought of her that way, but she did come in like a whirlwind with a huge fabric bag full of gifts and laughing and talking a mile a minute. We tried a new restaurant not far from the apartment and it was wonderful! A definite place to go back to for a special dinner out. It was lovely and it broke my record of getting bum meals out. I was sort of on a roll with ordering and not getting what was expected.

We rented a car for some of the time Corey was here which was a pleasure. It is the first we have done that in the four months since we arrived. We got to straighten out some of our buying mistakes - delivered the mattresses that didn't fit our beds to friends, returned chairs to IKEA that were the wrong height, and did a grocery order that didn't require me (and Bob) to carry whatever we could home. What a treat!!!

Cochem Castle

Corey got a chance to drive out into the countryside as well (and keep warm inside a car). We went down south to the town of Cochem which is on the Mosel River. Quaint little town with a castle perched above the village. The castle was closed because of time of year, but with a light snow on the ground we wandered the streets. The Mosel was frozen in spots, but that didn't stop a huge barge from barreling down the river. As we drove she could see all the vineyards up the hills from the river valley. We definitely need to wander back when they vines are full of fruit. I can just picture how beautiful it will be.

 We spent another day in the city of Bonn where many of the Americans from FedEx are living. It's just a 20 minute train ride south of Cologne. Being a Sunday and zero degrees out, there were not many people out. We went to Beethoven's House Museum which was very interesting. He lived in Bonn for the first 22 years of his life, so the town loves him! We also went to a German history museum which was excellent. The unique thing about the museum is it follows German history from the year 1945. Very interesting how they began with the end of the war and what the people had to face with what had happened in their country. Tastefully done - harsh realities of the war were apparent and disturbing.

Town Square with Town Hall in the background

Outside the entrance to the Beethoven Museum

We will miss you Corey!!! It was so nice to have company! Hope you were as comfortable as we were to have you.

Overnight in Karlsruhe, Germany

It was the end of the month and we were going to lose another free night at a Marriott, so we got on the computer and found a hotel in the direction Bob needed to travel Sunday night. We ended up in Karlsruhe, Germany. The weather has been rather gloomy here and it continued through the weekend. We were 2 hours south of Cologne, but it was definitely colder. The elevation is much higher as you travel south so it tends to be much colder.


Karlsruhe is south of Frankfort and a city of about 250,000 people. There were lots of young people around as it is a big university town as well. We found much more English spoken there too - menus in English, some signs in English which struck us odd.


Did walk all around the city which is laid out in spokes coming out from the Karlsruhe Palace which at one time was a hunting lodge surrounded by woods. It is a massive building that now houses a museum which we walked through without any English translations. It was cold out and our options were few. We wondered around trying to interpret what we were seeing. There was quite an extensive collection of things from 2,000 years BC! Amazing really.


In the evening we ran into this ice skating rink set up across the street from a beautiful building which housed a museum for children about nature and animals. The rink was constructed for November - January and was up for one more day. When we passed it there were lots of children and adults skating. The little white huts were tents set up - one for borrowing or putting on skates, the others for getting warm with wine (warm), hot chocolate, etc. The set up was a bit magical with the lights being stars lit up in the trees. We wondered back after we had a late dinner and our camera. At that point there was just a machine cleaning the ice. The amazing part to us there was no charge (even for the skates!).