Carnival in Cologne

When one thinks of Carnival, Brazil tends to stand out as the mecca of all things festive and lively. Carnival in Venice tends to take a more refined, if not spookier tone, lots of masks and elaborate costumes. And of course New Orleans has its Mardi Gras. But I never knew about the Northern German city of Cologne (or Köln).

I was then shocked and excited when Anjuli, a teacher's assistant at school, invited me to spend Carnival with her and her family in Cologne. I knew nothing about Carnival and thought this would be a great chance to spend some time with a real German family celebrating a real German tradition.

Friday night, Anjuli and I hopped on a train to Cologne and after two moves finally managed to get a seat together. Getting out at the main train station, we were greeted by hundreds of people in costumes from very silly to elaborate. Even when we took the S bahn over the Rhine to where Anjuli's mother and brother picked us up, we saw a full "surgical staff" picking up some burgers at McDonalds.

Anjuli's family home is in the village of Bensburg, just East of Cologne and is known for its beautiful castle...which just happens to be 200 meters from their front door.

Saturday morning we woke up, had a hearty breakfast and headed down to the village center to get last minute costume additions. We met Julian, Anjuli's younger brother in town with Anjuli's father and we shopped a bit, walked around and finally found ourselves in front of the castle. Anjuli's father insisted on a cup of rich hot chocolate in the castle's lounge. How could I refuse?

After being served the best hot chocolate ever by a Brad Pitt look-alike, we got ready for the Bensburg Parade. Julian loaned me a silly hat to go with the Cologne scarf Anjuli's dad got for me and we headed out to get candy thrown at us.

Not only did we have a bag full of candy thrown at us, but also liverwurst, red peppers, a box of tomatoes, a cell phone cover and three plastic pigs. Who doesn't love a holiday where you get free stuff thrown at you?

With just a few hours to get ready before the big party, we headed back to the flat to get in our real costumes. I went for my classic default, pirate, thanks to my fabulous black skirt I got 7 years ago at Target. Add in a thrift store shirt plus scarf from Hong Kong and I was set! What I didn't know was that the rest of the family except for Anjuli was going as pirates too!

The party was 7 hours worth of non-stop Cologne Carnival entertainment. There were dancers, comedians, singer-songwriters, and a host of other characters throughout the evening.

We danced, sang along, ate munchies and I did fairly well until about 12:30 when I started losing steam. One of the more enthusiastic ladies grabbed me for one last 15 minute segment of dancing and thankfully I was wedged in between several people in a chorus line so I didn't keel over. It was an excited and fun night. I didn't actually get to bed until 3AM!

On Sunday we had brunch at the castle with friends of Anjuli's family, but Julian had to go back to school on Monday so we laid low in the evening. Monday was Rose Monday, usually the big parade downtown in Cologne, but we decided to head over to the town of Bergisch Gladbach, famous as the hometown of Heidi Klum and also where Anjuli's aunt and uncle live.

Although this wasn't the huge 4 hour parade of Cologne fame, I enjoyed it a lot more. We went to a small pub/guesthouse before the parade started and had split pea soup and sausage. After the short parade (where we still managed to get over two bags of candy) we headed back to the pub which was now standing, okay, squishing room only with sound system pumping out Carnival classics. Below is an example of the type of music. Cheesy, fun, patriotic and easy to sing along with:

After the parade and pub, we visited Anjuli's other uncle who lives nearby and then went home to relax before packing up to go back to Frankfurt on Tuesday.

Cologne's carnival is so much fun and Anjuli's family was so gracious and kind that the whole weekend was a great experience. I hope to go again next year and maybe be brave enough to attempt the crazy Cologne Rose Monday parade.