Kölle Alaaf: celebrating the first day of “Karneval” in Köln

 

One of my favourite things about being an Erasmus student in Germany is spontaneous travel. Tuesday lunch time one of my friend’s suggested going to Cologne (Köln) soon. Just over 36 hours later we arrived.

The 11th of November, at 11.11am is the start of Karneval, a celebration period which runs up until Easter. The most famous Karneval parties take play in Cologne. It is definitely something that we cannot miss out on, and since I’m not going to be here for the climax on Karneval (I’ll be in Italy then) I at least had the chance to celebrate the opening.

So we go the train last night. What luck we had. We needed to take three trains. The first one ran fine. We had an hours stop over in Giessen, we got a bite to eat, everything was fine. But then our second train was late coming into the station. The train was late by 15 minutes and our next stop over was only 10 minutes. We were travelling on the last trains of the night, so there was no alternative transport. Luckily we were able to persuade the lovely staff at Deutsche Bahn to hold our final train for us until we arrived. If they hadn’t then we would have been stuck in a place called Siegen for at least 5 hours.

Karneval was amazing. We quickly realised how underdressed we were, pretty much as soon as we left the hostel. We managed to buy a few Red and White accessories (the colours of Cologne) to help us fit into the crowd. People take dressing up for Karneval VERY SERIOUSLY! Check out a few of the costumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The event itself was like a big outside concert. There was a main stage, lots of food stands serving German food (of course) and Kölsch Beer. Our favourite song is called “Viva Colonia”. We are determined to learn the lyrics and use it as our own little theme song.

There was such an amazing atmosphere and I’m really glad we went. I suggest to anyone who has the chance to go to Karneval in Cologne to go. I’m really jealous that I’m going to miss the biggest festivities, but I’ve heard that Venice also has an equally famous Karneval party so I will hopefully check that one out.