Wall to Wall: 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.