rosenmontag, part 1

alas, we've fallen way behind on our blogging: rosenmontag, or rose monday, the biggest day of karneval, was over two weeks ago! we spent the day in cologne for the incredible rosenmontagszug, or rose monday parade. cologne is a city of about 1 million people, and i believe that typically at least that many attend the parade every year. we had really cold crappy weather (it was right before everything turned gorgeous here), but it was still an awesome day.

here's the platform at the train station in bonn, about 10:30 am, as we (and everyone else pictured) were waiting to go to cologne. we'd been told in advance that we might not make it on to the train because it would be too packed. thankfully it didn't come to that, but things were definitely snug.
at this point we were in cologne, waiting for the parade to begin. aside from the handsome bugger on the left, check out the guys downing shots on the right.
remember how we mentioned that the parade is really a candy delivery system? this was an honest-to-goodness candy canon, which actually shot bursts of candy into the crowd.
and on the same note, how exactly do you supply enough candy to last throughout a 4 1/2 hour parade? this is how: a candy arsenal. there were actually several of these in the parade -- couriers were constantly running up to them, grabbing fresh stores of candy, and then making deliveries to marchers further back in the parade.
soldiers and clowns seem to be the most typical karneval costumes in the rhineland, but in southern germany, ghouls and ghosts are more common. this was a marching band from bavaria.cute!these enterprising folks, who i guess were watching the parade from above the street in their apartment, dangled an umbrella out the window in hopes of catching some candy that was thrown. and it actually worked! (though they collected a lot of rainwater too.)and finally the prince brought up the end of the parade! just like in bonn, he was the head dude of the whole shebang (and he also wore incredible feathers in his crown).here's our loot -- that bag was full.after the parade -- which p held up marvelously through -- we went out for dinner and drinks with corinna and her friends. just a lovely evening. here's one of cologne's finer establishments that we passed by.this was the scene in the student quarter at the end of our night, about 12:30 am. yup, things were still totally rocking. everyone was out in the middle of the street, which the city wisely decided to close to traffic for the evening.
and believe it or not, there's still more to come in a later post!