Carnival in Cologne

On March 10, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany14 Comments

On Rose Monday, I was in Köln for the Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) Parade. This was part of a slightly larger trip which included Karlsruhe and Stuttgart- I’ll talk about those in another post, because Cologne during Carnival is more than enough for one post.

First, a brief administrative note- I took more than 600 pictures, and I whittled them down to around 180 or so that were worth sharing with anyone. From those, I picked 32 for this post. If you want to see the ~150 that aren’t in the post, they’re in this gallery over here.

Second, there are a few things to bear in mind while looking through these pictures:

1) The best thing about the Carnival season for a big kid like myself is the costumes. There were so many costumes- I noticed a high count of bees, giraffes, and pirates. The people who wore full body fur suit costumes had the right idea though. The temperature wasn’t bad, but it was windy. Unless you were standing directly in the sun, it was kind of cold.

2) If I ever go to one of these things again, I totally need a costume with a helmet. Flying bars of solid chocolate hurt when they hit you in the head. Even a packet of Haribo gummi bears can be unpleasant if you get beaned right in the forehead. The candy was being thrown for hours, and after a while I started to shrink back like a kicked puppy any time someone made a throwing motion. The kids standing on either side of me made out like bandits from all the noggin-bounce candy castoffs, though.

3) These pictures actually span two parades. When I arrived in Cologne on Sunday afternoon, there was a different parade going. This parade featured more children, and wasn’t quite as large as the official parade on Monday, but it led to almost a quarter of the more than 600 pictures I finished the weekend with.

On to the pictures! The first one is an off-duty Superman, looking like a 70s pimp with that furry coat. I think the guy next to him is wearing a Batman costume, but I can’t be sure. This costume is particulary daring with the chilly weather.

Next up, a few Gnomes. The Gnomes aren’t what I love most about this photo, though. It’s the walking shower behind them… the curtain, the faucet… I think the shower costume is both creative and hilarious.

One of the many giraffe costumes I saw. I can pretty much guarantee that this guy was not nearly as cold as I was.

This next couples costume won’t make much sense to my American friends without context, but I spotted it right away- there’s a series of very cute commercials here for Kinder Riegel milk chocolate. I’ve embedded an example below, so you can see what the costume is all about.

When it’s time for lunch, you can’t go wrong at a snack bar with thiscast of characters.

During the first parade, I was particularly amused by this entire family of bears, each equipped with his or her own Honig (honey) pot with which to catch candy thrown from parade floats.

Another chocolate-inspired group costume.

There were so many great costumes that I put nine more into an image collage. The full sized individual shots of each of these are in the gallery linked near the top of this post.

On Monday morning, the parade started at 10:30, but I found a place closer to the end of the parade route than the start, so the streets actually looked this empty at first. Also, you can see that the windows on the parade route are often boarded up. I’m not sure if this is because of drunken revelry or if it’s because of flying chocolate bars, but this is a pretty common sight along the parade route during Carnival.

The empty streets didn’t last too long though, and before long there was plenty to see.

There was a lot of NSA/Google/Facebook/Data-Security themed stuff.

I made these six pictures into a collage because they were all together, and there’s a theme here. The green wigged, blind-folded people have eyes on their hands to represent the constant watching of data leeches like Facebook. I think the NSA camera stick holders in the previous picture were also with this group. Plus the green wigs were conga-lining, which was kind of fun.

I don’t know what this one was supposed to represent, but I thought it was neat looking.

I have no earthly idea what the story is with this group.

The German on this golden knight translates to “Your cellphone, your freedom.” I’m not entirely sure what they meant by that, but I think it was another one talking about data security.

There were lots of marching band and drum corps types of groups in various ornate uniforms…

…and one group playing marching washboards.

Some of the floats were single-rider deals, like this one. The head was turning back and forth.

More marching bands…

More single-rider floats…

I think after about six hours of playing the same song, you start to go a little crazy. Like this guy.

Once again, I have no clue at all what the deal is with the giant yellow heads that all have soul patches and deerstalker caps. I bet they’re heavy though.

There were lots of horses in the parade, but these two had the longest manes of any horse I’ve ever seen. Usually, parade horses have their manes trimmed very short- not so with these two.

The Zugordners (parade marshals) were utterly fascinating to watch. They all had these bright red jackets with the little black hats that were vaguely English Bobby shaped. I have no idea what they actually did, though, because the parade sort of moved itself along without any special pointing from this guy or his brethren.

…and on to the floats. The German on this one reads, “Fun Ghetto.” Inside the jail is someone drinking, a pair of humping dogs, and other forms of caricatures of fun.

I’m not sure if this one had a meaning other than just being Carnival-themed.

This next one might need some parsing from my German friends. I think the German text is supposed to translate to “Upgrade you will.” The goat has a rocket strapped to his back. And Yoda’s wearing a scarf for what I’m pretty sure is a local sports team. I don’t really get the full meaning. Any locals care to fill us in?

This one says “The Death Star, Washington” on the side. There were a few floats that had anti-American sentiment. All the NSA spying stuff has really caused some friction between our nations.

See?

About an hour after the parade ended, I walked over to the courtyard between the train station and the Cathedral. There were still an incredible amount of people moving through the city back to the train station.

I was wondering how the city recovered from something like the Rose Monday parade so quickly, and now I know. As soon as the parade was done, the cleaning crews came out. A veritable army of people with brooms gathered the majority of the debris into small piles, and another group came by with giant vehicle-sized vacuums. That giant white tube is a huge vacuum, sucking up piles of garbage from the street. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but I think it’s pretty nifty.

Have you ever been to a Carnival Parade?

Unexpected Homophobia In Stuttgart

On March 6, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany4 Comments

I just returned home on Tuesday afternoon from a trip that included Karlsruhe, a bit of Stuttgart, and Cologne for the Karneval festivities on Sunday and Monday. I’m still sorting those photos, and I’ll post about Karlsruhe and Cologne next week.

It was a very interesting weekend, though. When I was in Stuttgart, I saw a very large Polizei presence walking through the Hauptbahnhof on either side of a small group of people carrying pink flags. One of the flag carriers shouted, in English, “This is what democracy looks like!” I had no idea what he was talking about. Later on, I saw a second, much larger group of men without any noticeable flags or placards being escorted by another rather large group of Polizei.

The Stuttgarter-Nachrichten had the story- there is a plan to include more details about homosexuality in the sex-ed classes in Baden-Württemberg, and there was a homophobic protest against that change. What I saw was part of of a counter-protest, hence the pink flags. The Stuttgarter-Nachrichten has a great article about the protests here, including some pretty terrific photographs. I was mildly surprised to see the old “Gays are pedophiles” canard written out on a German protest sign, but it was there.

Here’s a few pictures I snapped in the Hauptbahnhof before I found out what was going on. If I had known this protest was happening, I would have tried to get over to Palace Square to see more.

Have you ever stumbled across an unexpected political protest?

Bamberg

On January 27, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany17 Comments

It’s difficult to travel in January, unless you’re going to somewhere much warmer out of the country. The days are short and grey and frequently a little bit on the chilled side, so sleeping in is usually much more desirable.

I’ve learned over the last two years that if I spend too long in Regensburg without taking any trips out of town, I start to get a little cranky. To combat this, I’ve compiled a small list of day-trips- places I can go in a single day on a Bayern Ticket (€23 for one person covers all RE,RB and local trains as well as bus rides, U-Bahn, and S-Bahn anywhere in Bavaria for the entire day.) With that short list in mind, I just try to go on a Saturday morning.

For the first three Saturday mornings of January, I reached the all important moment of getting out of bed and going to the train station, and I chose to keep sleeping instead. This weekend, however, I finally beat the evil snooze alarm, and I hopped the first train after 9am to scenic Bamberg!

Bamberg is about sixty kilometers north of Nuremberg, and is easily reachable by trains. Local trains (RE and S-Bahn) go between Nuremberg and Bamberg on an almost hourly basis. I arrived in town about fifteen or twenty minutes before noon, and started to wander. I had a list of about five things I wanted to see in the city, and I took the time honored tradition of “winging it” for the rest.

Item the first on my Bamberg list: Altenburg Castle

Altenburg Castle sits on a hill overlooking the old city of Bamberg. I wasn’t interested in going inside the castle, and I could see it clearly from where I was, so I didn’t bother going much closer than you can see from this picture.

Item the second on my Bamberg list: Bamberger Dom (the Bamberg Cathedral)

The main cathedral in Bamberg was built originally in 1012, but it was partially destroyed and rebuilt a few times. Its present form is kind of like this:

Inside the cathedral are a lot of interesting statues, including the famous Bamberg Horseman (Der Bamberger Reiter.) Nobody knows who this statue represents, but it’s probably been there since about the year 1237. The crown suggests royalty, but there’s no other items to suggest identity. Saint Henry II is buried in this cathedral, and some believe that it represents him, but there’s no Imperial Regalia to confirm that. Pope Clement II is also buried in this cathedral.

There’s a lot of fascinating sculpture in the Bamberger Dom, so it’s worth having a look around. I thought the headless clergyman here was interesting:

Just three more pictures from the cathedral, and then we’ll move on.

Item the third on my Bamberg list: The Franconian Brewery Museum

Alas, the Fränkisches Brauereimuseum is closed until April. I do have some bad luck with things being closed when I visit. I had the same problem with the film museum in Paris and the suspended trains in Wuppertal.

Item the fourth on my Bamberg list: The Bamberg Historical Museum

Right next to the Dom, this was also closed, for “Winter Pause.” That’s ok, though. In this case, I didn’t want to go inside so much as I wanted to see the building.

Item the fifth on my Bamberg list: Try Rauchbier

Bamberg is famous for Rauchbier, or smoked beer. The distinctive smokey smell and flavor is achieved by drying barley over an open flame. Schlenkerla and Spezial have been brewing smoked beer in Bamberg for nearly two hundred years, and Schlenkerla is one of the best known brands of smoked beer in the world. This is what I tried.

I thought it would be disgusting, but it wasn’t. It’s difficult to describe the flavor- my friend Alice likens it to “drinking a campfire,” and that’s probably the most accurate description I’ve yet heard. I didn’t really care for Rauchbier, but I can see the appeal. Additionally, I only tried one variety from one brewer- there’s also a smoked Weizen (wheat beer) available, and I’d like to try that some time.

Item the sixth on my Bamberg list: The Bamberg Altes Rathaus

This building was my favorite thing about Bamberg. It’s situated on the Regnitz river. More accurately, it’s perched somewhat precariously over the Regnitz river. Reachable from either side only by a pedestrian bridge, this is a very impressive and fascinatingly beautiful structure. It helps that this is the one point all day where the sun came out and pretended to not be part of January.

This is one of the sides visible from the pedestrian bridge, a street fittingly named Obere Brücke, or Upper Bridge.

There are bridges on either side of the Altes Rathaus. The first photograph of the Rathaus in this post was taken from this bridge, a much more modern affair, but with a fantastic view of the building.

Item the seventh on my Bamberg list: Winging It

The rest of these are just things that I found wandering around the city that I thought were interesting. For example, in the Grüner Markt, there’s a fountain containing a sculpture called “Gabelmann.” Gabelmann translates to “Fork Man,” which is apropos since the statue represents Neptune, god of the seas, holding up his traditional trident. In hind-sight, I wish I’d taken a better photograph than this one.

Mohren Haus means Moor’s house. Every time I encounter something named after the Moors in Germany, I’m utterly fascinated. The tiny statue of little Moor dude on the building totally makes it, don’t you think?

Interesting sculpture!

More interesting scultpture! This one represents Kaiserin Kunigund, but I don’t have any real idea who that is.

Next up is a statue of Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria. Spend any amount of time in the south of Germany and you’ll encounter at least one Luitpoldstraße in every city. There’s one in Regensburg, a block away from my apartment.

Luitpold became the Regent of Bavaria after the (frankly rather suspicious) death of his nephew, King Ludwig II. He remained the Prince Regent until his death in 1912, at the age of 91.

Last, but not least, I stopped in at the Stadtgalerie (City Gallery) Bamberg, because there was a poster for an ongoing exhibit (there until the first of June) called Jüdisches in Bamberg. I wanted to see what Jewish stuff was in the exhibit, so I took a look. For a €5 entry fee, this was well worth a stop.

One of the displays had three or four of these rather amazing three dimensional images. From above, it looks a little bit like a honey-comb. It’s a cube rather than a rectangle, but when viewed from the front, the depth is rather ingenious. This picture doesn’t quite capture how amazing it is.

Among the artifacts on display in the Jewish exhibit was a Torah scroll, along with the Mantel (the velvet cloak that goes over it), the Kesser (the two silver doo-dads that go atop the wooden shafts), and the Yad (the silver pointer used to read from the Torah.)

This particular one is apparently on loan from the Bamberg Historical Museum, and I was not able to find any details about its origin prior to that. Every Torah is hand-written by a special scribe, though, so they’re not terribly easy to come by.

Have you ever been to Bamberg? Did you try the Rauchbier? What did you think of it?

Cinecittà Nuremberg, A Movie Lover’s Theater

On January 13, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany3 Comments

I love movies. I love watching them. I love their quotable lines, their soundtracks… I love pretty much everything about a good movie. Living in Germany, I don’t get to see them as much as I used to. My command of the language isn’t that great, so watching an entire movie in German is an exercise in frustration.

The answer to this problem, for any native English speaker, is the OV movie. OV is short for Original Version. Sometimes it’s listed as OF, or Originalfassung. OV movies are presented in their original language, and more often than not, that original language is English. The Cinemaxx theater closest to my apartment plays one OV movie every Monday night- just one. Lately, they’ve also been adding an occasional very late Thursday night OV movie as well. This gives me a good chance at seeing most of the megablockbusters – The Hobbit, The Avengers, and so forth. This isn’t enough showings for every movie that comes out, so there are some movies that never play here in English. I’m still bummed that I haven’t seen the last Muppet movie in English. I did watch it German- I could follow the storyline without any problems, but I missed a lot of good verbal jokes.

Nuremberg has a better theater, though. I first heard of the Cinecittà when simulcast showings were being announced for The Day Of The Doctor and I was looking for a theater to see the film. I was able to see that in Regensburg after all, so my first visit to the Cinecittà in person was in mid-December, when I went to see Frozen. I’m a convert, and I’m sure I’ll be back there again.

The entryway looks like a normal theater with just a few screens. However, most of the complex is built underground. It’s impossible to see from the surface just how large the theater is- there are about 22 screens. Some are small, but the complex includes 3D projection, IMAX-sized screens, and so-called 4D theaters where the seats move for an immersive movie experience. Best of all, they play many OV movies, and not just on one day of the week.

Walking through the complex underneath the main lobby area, there are snack bars, restaurants, and small art displays.

This being Nuremberg, there’s a display of Albrecht Dürer art, including his famous Hare.

I didn’t realize just how enormous this theater complex truly is until I noticed this view. By the time I took this picture, I had already gone down a sloped ramp to a lower level, and this is a view looking downward at the levels still beneath me.

What’s the largest theater you’ve ever been to?

Nuremberg Christkindlmarkt

On December 19, 2013May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany5 Comments

I decided a while back that I wanted to see the Nuremberg Christmas Market this year. The Nuremberg market is one of the most famous, and it’s a big attraction for tourists. It sees about two million visitors a year. This is what it looked like at around 5pm on a very rainy Saturday night.

It was pretty difficult to move up and down the aisles because of the volume of people visiting. This was more crowded than my visit to Oktoberfest, although that was a weekday rather than a Saturday.

It’s held in the Hauptmarkt, a large courtyard between a big church and a big pointy fountain in the Nürnberg Altstadt. This is the fountain:

There are booths and decorations on all the connecting streets as well. This little fellow was in front of a store.

The market has the usual things you find in any Christmas market – hot nuts, Lebkuchen, Bratwurst, handmade goods, and Glühwein.

Nuremberg also sports the world’s largest flaming punch bowl. I took some pictures of the flaming punch bowl, but they really didn’t come out very well so they won’t be included here.

While I was there, a German chorus was singing English Christmas music in front of the Church.

When I stopped for a closer look, the director (in the red cowboy shaped hat) asked the audience if there were any Americans in the audience. He seemed disappointed with the lack of response- apparently the Americans are usually noisier.

Perhaps it’s because all the Americans were enjoying the Glühwein- Nuremberg had the white variety seen here. It’s not quite as sweet as the usual red wine flavors of Glühwein, but it was very delicious. A hot steaming mug of this was enough to make me forget it was raining the entire time I was at the market.