Carnival / Fasching

It's like Halloween except instead of kids in costumes going door to door in the rain to get candy, kids and adults in costumes stand in the freezing, winter cold on the side of the road waiting for candy to get tossed to them from the parade. The biggest Carnival, or "Fasching" in German, event is in Mainz, which is where Marie and I were. There are other cities that have the celebration too, but Mainz is known to have the biggest one.

If you don't have a costume, then the next best thing is to wear a funny hat or wig. See the rastafarian by the pandas?

Here's a game for you. It's kind of like where's waldo except you have to find certain hats from the pictures below:
Santa, jailberg, soccor ball, viking

This costume was a little freaky looking.


Marie and I were party poopers and didn't do either but we still got plenty of candy!


There's all sorts of floats in the parade. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of political ones.


These characters are called Mainzelmännchen which are the mascots of Fasching.


This mouse man was funny. He must have grown up in the area because he was dancing to the parade music the whole time we were there.


Can you say, "packed like sardines"?


As the parade comes by, you're supposed to shout out, "hela!" and wave at the parade people while they do likewise. Marie (on the left with the red jacket) was into it, since she's gone a few times.

Marcus, her husband, grew up in the area and so grew up with Fasching. Apparently, it's not just a parade. It's another holiday (where only that German state gets a day off) to celebrate life and drink a lot of beer.

One of the floats had "The Macarena" song playing, so this playgirl bunny danced along.


Some funny colored marching band.

The music was great from every float/band.

Don't these look like big bobble-heads?


The parade lasted for like 5 hours! If you ever visit, make sure you're securely bundled and bring a lot of hot chocolate!