Tomorrow it's Rosenmontag – word by word translation is „Monday of the Roses“, but as far as I know this names doesn’t have to do anything with roses, but is from the German word „rasen“, which describes that people behave crazy on this day. So the better translation would be „Roaring Monday“.
The pic above shows some confetti which is thrown everywhere.
Tomorrow is the climax of carnival. And on Wednesday carnival is over. There are two kinds of carnival in Germany.
First of all there is the „meeting-carnival“, which already begins on November 11th. People meet mostly in the evenings in huge festival halls. They wear costumes and watch a comedy program, which is adapted from the meetings of a parliament. So there are 11 parliamentarians (11 is the foolish number), the „Elferrat“, who leads the meeting (picture above). On the stage there are performed speeches, which should be funny. Such speeches are written in a sort of poem. All lines must rhyme. And after every joke there is played a fanfare by the orchestra, so you can’t miss when you have to laugh. Between these speeches, which are called „Buettenrede“ (speech held from the top of a barrel is the word by word translation), there are musical performances of special carnival-bands or military marches were played.
A group of people, who are costumed like soldiers in old uniforms of about 1800, dances to this music. This is because carnival in the Rhineland spoofs the French and Prussian military. At that time French and Prussian troops had occupied the Rhineland and of course the Rhinelanders didn’t like this. So they spoofed the military during carnival. This was the only way to show their protest. These carnival troops are called „Funken“ and they always have a female „Soldier“, which has to dance the most difficult parts. This female soldier is called „Funkemariechen“ (picture), Mariechen is the name Mary. The male soldiers have to „dance“ „Stippefötchen“, which comes from the word „stippe“ = to touch and „fötchen“= ass. They stand back to back and bump their butts together.
On Women’s shrove, it's on Thursday before Roaring Monday, the street-carnival begins, which lasts until this Tuesday. People are costumed and walk through the streets singing, dancing and celebrating. They meet in the pubs where they keep on celebrating and behaving crazy.
The street carnival is celebrated also by the pageants, which start also on women’s shrove and end on this Tuesday. But most pageants are on the Roaring Monday, which is today. The biggest pageants are in Cologne, Duesseldorf, Bonn, Mainz and Aachen. Hundred thousands of visitors stand in the streets where the pageants will pass and are celebrating. You can’t get into the towns by car on this day. Already in the early morning all streets are full of people. Nothing works any more. It’s state of emergency everywhere.
The pageants consist of huge wagons, which are decorated in a special way. There are political wagons, which spoof politics, there are wagons decorated as gigantic horse-coaches and there are fairy-tale motifs. On the wagons there are the people of the club who have decorated the wagon and they are throwing candies („Kamelle“), bunches of flowers or other little presents. The visitors mostly battle to get the candies or flowers. Some try to catch them with huge umbrellas. But you can imagine that they are not very liked by the other visitors. The police pays attention that nobody is hurt, but the policemen are ordered to celebrate also a bit on this day. Between the wagons there are marching troops of the Funken or other groups in costumes. Such pageant lasts several hours. And after the pageant people keep on celebrating in their homes or in the pubs, where there are parties that last until Tuesday morning.
There is a typical carnival cake. We cal them Kreppel, others call them Berlinder. Kreppel are very similar to donuts. People also eat sausages and potato salad or herring and pickles and they drink a lot: Beer, liqueur, schnaps, sparkling wine and so on. On Tuesday most people can’t work, because they are hangover.
As someone how raised in the Rhineland and loved he street carnivale, I have got some problems with celebrating carnivale as it is celebrated in East-Westphalia. You must know that the East-Westphalians are well known for the lack of any temper. They prefer the meeting carnival and there is no street carnivale at all. And it's so funny at them eetings that I wouldn't know when to laugh if there wouldn't be those fanfares. I would never go there volunteeringly. So at carnivale we prefer to stay at home.
I still have an old photo of a carnival-party in about 1971....
That's me at the age of 12. Funny, how we looked then. By the way, it was my grandma's dress I "styled" with some green fabric....
Helau, Alaaf! This is how people greet each other during carnival.
So: HELAU! HELAU to all!
"Kreppel"
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