Karneval

And two months later, I am officially a blog-slacker.

I really regret being out of touch with everyone back home, as well as not keeping a "living log" of everything that I've been up to lately. Therefore, I am commencing a marathon blog-updating session today with a few (representative photos) of what I've been up to in the past couple of months...

...starting with Karneval, which is basically Germany's answer for Mardi Gras. You can read a more detailed explanation of the history/traditions associated with Karneval here (click), but I'll highlight a few salient points here:

-Germans have started to celebrate Halloween in more recent years, but this is the celebration that people really get decked-out for. And everyone, young and old, it seemed, had a really elaborate costume. Or several.
-Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mainz are the three most prominent sites of Karenval celebrations in the entire country.
-Mainz was basically turned upside town for five days - read: excited, beer-fueled, ridiculously-costumed Germans running through the streets...

In practice, this all means that I participated in a city-wide, four-day weekend of festivities in the heart of the celebration...while dressed up as a fairly convincing Schneewittchen (Snow White). It was pretty unbelievable - definitely not something I could do more than once a year (or perhaps once in a lifetime, even), but certainly a genuine "Mainz experience."

I'm not even going to try to further describe the experience using words, since pictures will do a far better job here. Enjoy....

The most important day of the Karneval celebration, the Rosenmontag Parade.

Glauco, demonstrating one apparent function of the special Karneval-themed Haribo gummi "bears." (Personally, I prefer eating them.)

My princess shoes had a difficult time on the rainy, wet, glassy cobblestones...

Even Obama made it into the parade. By the way, I love this Wagen, though I'm not sure I completely agree with the point it's making...

The MPI crew at the Rosenmontag parade.

...and The Aftermath.

It was rainy and cold on Rosenmontag,


which already feels like it was ages ago.