I have to be honest... I have been putting off blogging for a couple of days now. It's not at all that I don't enjoy it, but more that I think of it either when I should be going to bed or when I am spending time with people and would much rather pay attention to them than focus my energy on writing. Right now I'm just sitting with Phillip, so I figured I'd better stop dillydallying.
Fasching was an experience unlike any I have ever had in my life. The atmosphere was so different from that of a parade in the US. The whole week built up to it. On Saturday when we went sledding we saw kids out that had their faces painted. The weekend before that, Tim and Andrea's kids had a party at school for Fasching. It has been building for weeks. When Tuesday finally arrived, we were not completely prepared for what we experienced. Everyone dressed up. I don't just mean kids, teens, and parents of kids. Everyone. People even go to work dressed up.
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| The first act of the parade, one of many marching bands. |
We met Tim and Andrea (and their kids Vivian and Adam) on Hauptstrasse, about 7 minutes down from the Pension. The walk was interesting. There were SO many people out. It gets especially busy on Hauptstrasse during the weekends, but this was so much busier. We picked our way through the crowd, and noticed all of the different costumes. It is similar to Halloween in the US, but it was the middle of the day, and everyone participated.
The Hauptstrasse is a cobblestone street that is for pedestrians mostly, but cars are allowed on it as well. It's not as wide as a normal street, so if two cars were to try to pass each other it would be a tight fit. The people were just standing on the street. Since it is more like a pedestrian path, there are no sidewalks. People just lined the street, barely out of the way of the parade coming through. If someone wants to cross the street, they do, right through the middle of the parade. It's normal, very unlike in the US where you have to stay out of the street during the parade, sometimes because there is even a barricade. I kind of prefer this over the US way, because it was much more relaxed. Although, part of the reason for that could be all of the alcohol being consumed.
Andrea told us that this (above) is in reference to work that has been going on in Ziegelhauser on the streets. Apparently, the jack-hammering in the streets woke up all of the cockroaches in Ziegelhauser and caused them all to come out into the streets. Disgusting, I know. But apparently anyone can get into the parade, and they were lively. Anyways, it is relevant to the culture.
This group is in keeping with the idea that anyone can get into the parade. If I remember correctly, these guys were from a local club, and all got costumes. I don't know if this creature is their mascot, or if they just decided they liked this costume and that it would work well enough. Anyways, there were ten to fifteen of them, and they were pretty creepy. Here's the thing, in the parade, the people watching the parade interact a lot with the people in the parade, so these guys would walk around looking for people to scare or take photos with.
Then there were the witches. There were actually two groups of witches, but I don't suppose it's necessary to post photos of both of those groups. Hopefully you just take my word for it. The witches were similar to the weird creatures above. They walked around looking for someone to bug. At one point, one of them walked up to someone next to us (whose back was to the parade) and slowly took his hat off. The witch gave it back, obviously, but it was funny.
Here is the same group as Monday. I found out that what they did was part of a tradition where they go in and take over the city government for the day or something like that. I don't exactly remember. Anyways, here they are again.
These are the Heidelberg colors, and this band is named after Perkeo, who was a dwarf that live in the castle a long time ago. The story goes that the only water he ever drank killed him. Look him up, it's an interesting story :)
This float made me a bit sad. Our music history professor told us that the American base that was in Heidelberg recently got moved to another city. I don't remember why it was moved, but I do remember him saying that the people of Heidelberg were pretty upset about it. This was the final tribute and farewell to the American troops that recently left the area. Goodbye Friends.
And now for the end.
When I saw the front of this float, I was a bit confused. I thought I understood, but I was wrong. That guy in the yellow is holding a rope that goes all the way around the float, and in the front a lady was walking within the rope. I thought that she was going to dance, because this float belonged to a radio station, but as the float passed by, I could see that I was pretty wrong. The rope was to hold off the people. It was amazing. The people were pressing in after the float so much that it took several security officers to hold them back. We took off down the side street as soon as we realized what was happening. It was craziness.
Since we walked down around the Hauptstrasse on the opposite side of our Pension, we eventually had to cross over. We did this when we got to the Marktplatz, which is at the end of our street, and just happened to be where the parade ended. We actually caught up with the parade, before it's end and all the droves of people that were pressing in at the end. I posted a photo of Marktplatz in the snow. There were people in that fountain. And all over the square. It was one huge dance party that lasted two hours. It was craziness. I didn't stay for any of it, we just crossed the square as quickly as we could. But we could hear it from our Pension. After the parade (that evening) we went out for dinner, and the streets were a MESS. There was confetti and broken glass EVERYWHERE. It looked like there had been a riot, except that all of the stores were still intact. By the next morning everything had been cleaned up and was pretty much just like it had been when we got up Tuesday morning.
Fasching was a unique experience. If ever you get a chance to experience it, don't pass it up.
Grace and Peace,
Suz :)
