Dusseldorf: Helau!

After having gone nearly a month without any air travel, we began to feel the itch for invasive pat-downs, tiny bottles of shampoo, and taking off our shoes in public places. Luckily, this coincided nicely with our planned trip to Dusseldorf for the German Karneval. We headed back to Bergamo to catch our RyanAir flight from "Milan" to "Dusseldorf". Both airports were a good 90 minutes from the actual city. We knew we were in for a good time when we saw the Spartans lining up at our gate for boarding. Now, the Spartan was my high school mascot but these guys were no alumni. Two tall Italian men were dressed in full Spartan warrior attire for Karneval and had apparently decided to start the party early (or maybe they just wanted to save room in their carry-on luggage - maximum 10 kilos allowed!)

Arriving on Saturday afternoon, we'd missed the interesting festivities of Altweiber, or, "Woman's Day" that prior Thursday. The friend we were visiting with explained that on Altweiber, women run around town cutting off men's ties and kissing whomever they'd like. While our friend's tie survived, his boss's was cut right off. The traditional Karneval greeting in the Dusseldorf area is "Helau" and we practiced it that night. Heading to downtown Dusseldorf, practically everyone was in costume and we felt a bit out of place. Even the metro station was filled with tons of people, including a costumed marching band. Seriously.


The streets were packed and I seemed to be a magnet for drunk strangers. Within minutes of taking out my camera, I was accosted by a group of drunk teenage girls who wanted to take a picture with me. At least, that's what my translating friend told me - I couldn't understand a word they said. After a few pictures, the girls and our group parted ways but we all were pulled into dancing and swaying during various points in the night. Most of the German traditional songs started to sound the same after awhile so it was easy to figure out the parts where we all linked arms and swayed.


One particular street seemed to be the focal point of Karneval activity. DJs were blaring out of speakers and the pubs, street, and alleys were packed. Stands were selling bratwurst and the region's famous Altbier in small glasses that seemed to just send people back for seconds (and thirds, and fifteenths) sooner. We soon got into the spirit ourselves, purchasing wigs (a neon bob for me, afros for the boys) and shaking it to both the traditional songs and the German techno. Since this weekend was the culmination of the weeks of Karneval (it starts on November 11 at 11.11 am in the Rhineland), we shared in celebration of the days leading up to Lent - celebrating just long enough to make us oversleep for the next day's scheduled plans.