Whether you call it Carnivale, Mardi Gras or Fasching, you're gonna need some parades. One of the largest in Germany is the Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) parade in Mainz, conveniently only an hour or so away from our house. It has it all - costumes (worn by everyone in the crowd as well as the parade participants. We saw Arab sheiks, giant jack-o-lanterns, Village People, teddy bears, cowboys, chickens, clowns, random wigs, cops-and-robbers ... you name it. A giant chicken video-taping the scene? We got it. A teddy bear drinking from a bottle of champagne and smoking a cig at 10am? We got it. A 70-year-old psychedelic Justin Beiber? Yeah, we got that. And it's all during the week of Fasching. Sure you expect to see a giant fairy at a parade, but buying groceries at 2 in the afternoon?), candy, drinking, people watching, weird bands ...
So, we arrive, secure a position at the edge of the street and watch the crowd.
I think we're gonna need a pretzel for this.
Good. Here comes the pretzel guy. He couldn't sell them fast enough. (And for an item that is typically about 50cents, he was making $3 a pop. Nice hustle Pretzel Man.)
Okay, I get why Johannes Gutenberg is holding a Bible. Thank you for the printing press, friend. But why is he sitting on a wine barrel?
Not all clowns are happy. Not all clowns are evil. Some just don't care. (And, by the way, we were at the start of the parade. These two jolly fellows still had 7 kilometers to walk. Also, everyone that passed yelled "Helau!!!" very loudly and enthusiastically. Now remember, they were all just starting out. But we, the crowd got tired of yelling it back after about 20 minutes, so the second half of the parade participants got more of "Okay, we're only gonna yell back if you are throwing candy."
The Mafiosa. Passing out cups of, what I'd swear she called "salatte saft (salad juice)." But they weren't handing out cups to kids.
Here's where they refilled their pitchers (or you could refill your cups when they turned their backs)
As Eric said, "What Avatars would look like on a German diet of schnitzel and beer."
The Google Earth group (notice the cameras on their heads). I can't show you the float because it was a giant guy standing at his window, robe open, saying "Hey, Google!" in full paper-mache Monty. Germans consider Google Earth an invasion of their privacy and often have signs in their home window saying Google can't photograph them (Google blurs those homes in Street View).
Swiss cows leading their shepherds (we had a beautiful hotel halfway up a mountain once where the shepherds led their cows up very early in the morning - also known as 50 cow bells clanging by at 5am)
The Shepherds
Bonus points for throwing candy and having awesome facial hair (these guys represent a travel agency)
Ah, the GuggenMusik bands (literally means "music to look at") each with a different costume with absolutely no meaning. Care Bears? Sure, why not?
And the giant heads. Let your nightmares begin ...
Doesn't it look like everyone in the crown is purposely avoiding looking at this thing?
And a Smurf band. Sure. What they lacked in costume quality they made up for in enthusiasm.
GuggenMusik vampires - not the sparkly kind who take you away in romance. Sorry. But they will rock you.
Little Generals
I don't know what these are supposed to represent, but how cute are they?
And always with the witches. They poke the crowd. Last year, at the Heidelberg Tuesday parade, they were carrying away small children. And in Mannheim on Sunday one ealked up to me and made a mess of my hair while his friends ran down the hill to a Turkish wedding reception
This witch knows where her close-up will be
Brazil Carnivale meets scarecrow?
So, the weather was crazy, can't-feel-my-toes cold, but we had a great time. Thank you Mainz. You do know how to put on a parade.
Helau!!!
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