Karneval Edition

Guest editor - Lewis

March 7, 2009

Greetings! It's been a while since the last post, but life has been busy. So... to catch up a bit.

Jaime asked me to fill in some of the events of the past weeks, particularly about our Fasching activities. For those who aren't aware, Fasching, Fassenacht, Karnival, Mardi Gras, etc. are all names for the activities leading up to Lent. In Germany, Fasching isn't universally celebrated, but noted centers of celebration include Köln, and Mainz. Wiesbaden, just next to Mainz, and many of the surrounding communities also jump in with full enthusiasm.

One of my colleagues at work is a member of a local club, BappKappeClub Wiesbaden 1985 n.e.V. (see http://bkcw.de).





They dress up as Vikings and participate in several of the Fassenacht parties and parades in the Wiesbaden area. Well, we just had to join up!

The group is primarily German citizens, with Jaime and I tripling the American membership to 3. We thought it sounded like fun, and would get to meet more of the local citizens and practice a bit of German language.

Well, we had a blast. We attended several of the Sitzungs (Fassenacht parties) and even though 90% of the jokes, etc went over our head, we enjoyed the music and the general enthusiasm everyone had for celebrating.
And the beer. Germany has good beer. :-)

We also "marched" in two of the Fasching parades. Marching isn't exactly correct, because one of the tenets of the BKCW is that while everyone is being very correct and traditional and composed (not really), the Vikings are acting like Vikings.. walking through the crowd with weapons, yelling and blowing horns, drinking, etc. during the parade. They loved us! The group has become well known and has only been kicked out of parties a few times. We participated in the Wiesbaden parade on Sunday,


and in the Frauenstein parade on Monday (Rosenmontag).



That wrapped up the season for us, though I guess there were a few more parties the next day. Next year we get to have our own weapons!

Stayed tuned for more from Jaime.

Per Jaime on 3/8/09: We finally pulled our copy of the local newspaper (Dotzheimer Kontakte) to read last night - and - Lo, and behold: Yours truly is pictured in her Viking regalia right in the middle of the front page! Who'da thunk it? I'm becoming famous over here! We're going to try and get more copies today.