carnival, candy, blurry photos and a parade

Hi guys!

These are the photos I took a few days ago when I visited the big carnival parade in the city with my colleagues. The so-called Rosenmontagszug is the biggest parade here in Düsseldorf and the final festivity before carnival is over, so the people put on their costumes, drink, dance, celebrate and bring plastic bags to collect all the candy that is thrown from the wagons.
Although all the drunk people (including some drunk colleagues) were pretty exhausting we had lots of fun singing carnival songs, shouting "Kamelle!" to make the wagons throw candy and collecting it in our bags or watch all the little children collect it (of course we let them pick up the sweets first).



my improvisated costume...


... and my very first attempt on smokey eyes.


I had planned to wear an other costume but it turned out as not warm enough for the sunny but cold weather, so I put together a squaw costume with what I already had in my wardrobe. The only thing I had to buy for it were the feathers for the headband, which were 1,50€ at the crafting supply shop. Then I braided my hair, put on my fringed boots, brown tights and the skirt with the bears print. As the headband is braided too it was easy to apply the feathers by simply putting them in the little holes between the braided strings.
In the end I tried out brown smokey eyes for the very first time. Well, I admit they weren't perfect, but it took me about 40 minutes to do them properly and the result was better than I had expected.
If you're interested: I used one of MisssChievous' youtube tutorials. I didn't have as many different hues and brushes as her, but her explanations were very helpful.



my fellow squaw with her collecting bag


the wagon for the German-Japanese friendship


my favourite wagon of the whole parade :)


one of the many marching bands


half-naked Brazilian dancers (it was 10°C)


a cute wagon of one of the many carnival dancing groups,
in German they're called Gardetanz-Gruppen and they do this kind of dancing
(which must look pretty strange to everyone who doesn't know Rhinelandish carnival)

Hope you enjoyed this little insight into our Rhinelandish carnival traditions. And if you wonder about the reason for all the fuss, carnival is a celebration to chase away bad ghosts (like Halloween I think).
If you ever happen to be in the Cologne or Düsseldorf area in the carnival time don't miss out one of the many festivities, especially for foreign visitors this can be much fun.
Düsseldorf has a big Japanese community, so there were many Japanese visitors marveling and taking photos of the parade. Furthermore many immigrants take part in the carnival customs despite their different culture. I saw Turkish fathers putting their children on their shoulders so they could see better, African girls singing and dancing in the front row of the audience to get some more candy, Chinese mothers collecting some sweets for their toddlers. Somehow this very old German tradition makes the people celebrate together, I think that's one of the main reasons why everyone has so much fun :)

Anyway, tonight Patrick's band plays a concert and tomorrow there's a big fleamarket, so I'll think I'll be back with a new post then.
I wish you all a lovely Saturday and a great weekend in general!





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