It's Carnival time = one big party

Several cities in Europe (and throughout the world) celebrate the days before the beginning of Lent with large parties, street fairs, and other forms of excessive celebration. In the States, the most famous city would be New Orleans and the party would be called Marti Gras, in Northern Europe, everyone goes to Germany and Southern Holland and the party is called Carnival. Hearing about the good times, parades, costumes, and the possibility of seeing a mini-canon being shot off (we did), Todd and I decided to return to Maastrict, Holland (where we had visited only 2 weeks prior) to check out the events. We were certainly glad that we did. The pictures show the people better than I could ever describe, so I will just add some additional commentary to the events. What I found so interesting about Carnival is that everyone participates. Normally, when I think of a parade in the United States, I think about people going to watch the parade. You go to watch the floats, hear the bands, see the midget Orak club cars, etc. There is a clear distinction between the "parade - ers" and "watchers". This was not the case at Carnival. Everyone was dressed up and everyone was in the parade. And when you finished walking the parade route, you stood and watched everyone else. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone - young babies, toddlers, school age kids, teenagers, young adults, middle aged adults, and old and elderly adults (most of the participants were in this category - the adults were definitely enjoying the parade more than the kids - which is also funny because in the States that is normally reversed). Everyone was fully dressed in costume and everyone participated. Todd and I, looked out of place without a costume or colorful clothes (just so that you know, our intention was to buy a hat or scarf or something when we arrived in Maastrict, however, nothing was open (except for the bars) because it was a Sunday - remember, we are in Europe not in the States. )

Which brings me to another point that we thought was interesting. There were no "street vendors". In the US, at an event like this with this number of people, normally there would be people walking around selling things - like colorful hats and scarfs to those people that don't have them - but that was not the case here. Like I said, EVERYONE was participating in the events of the day. And, people just aren't as capitalistic as we are in the States, which Todd and I viewed as an "opportunity" to make some money if we had some things to sell (yes, we always are accountants). But anyways, I digress from the "party based" theme of the day.

So, Carnival is about dressing up, and partying. You cannot forget the partying. At first, I just noticed that several of the parade participants pushed or pulled some sort of cart. It was difficult to do on the brick cobblestone streets, but I figured, that was probably just part of the
"costume". Upon further analysis, however, we learned that the carts were to carry /store / transport the beverages of the day. Everyone had beer. Everyone was drinking beer. Everyone was sharing beer.... in the parade!!! Talk about open beverage container laws!!! Just not something you are used to seeing everyday.

So, we had a great day in Maastrict. Managed to say warm, have a great lunch, and watch a portion of the parade. In case you are wondering, the parade lasted 5 hrs. Todd and I managed 3.5 of those but were tempted to leave our spots based on the freshly made Belgium waffles we could smell being made down the street. We also tried to sing the Maastrict parade theme sound which we heard several times that day. Todd had obtained the translated version on the internet which told us that the theme song was about the government stealing peoples bikes from the city when the bike was not locked up in a bike rack. Apparently, this was a very serious issue a few years ago and thus the song, which everyone sang.... including the government officials!!!

So, great day, great party, great weekend, and now.... back to work.