Monday, 23 February, is a holiday in this area of Germany (I heard somewhere that it is not a nation-wide holiday). We went to the Karneval parade with some friends from the school. We met in Bad Godesberg and took the tram into Bonn to avoid a parking nightmare, and we got there early enough to get a decent spot for our group. It is really quite entertaining to see all of the adults dressed up in their costumes -- and I'm talking about the spectators, not the people in the parades. In fact, most of the crowd were adults - I don't remember seeing too many kids.
We got there about an hour before it started to make sure we'd have plenty of room for our group.
This was one of the first groups in the parade - all dressed up like French soldiers (from what I hear, the Germans in this area use Karneval partly to celebrate the fact that they kicked out the French, who occupied this area at one point in history). Notice the wooden spoon in that guy's hat? They all had wooden spoons - I'm sure that has some significance, but I'm not sure what....
Grant and Luke - both going on their 3rd costumes.
We were shocked to see one of the groups in the parade come down the street wearing the exact same costume as Nash.
??????
Confetti cannon!
