Local: Fasching (or Fasnacht Day) 2014

I remember when I was very young living in Pennsylvania and "celebrating" Fasnacht Day. For my non-German-American readers, Fasnacht Day is better known as Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Carnival or, more simply put, the day before Lent begins. A fasnacht is like the German equivalent of a King's Cake, for lack of better comparison. It's a huge, fatty doughnut possibly made out of potatos. As a kid, I don't remember doing anything for Fasnacht Day other than acknowledging it. I'm not sure if I've ever actually had a fasnacht, but I would probably take a whoppie pie from an Amish bakery before a fasnacht anyway.

A few months ago, we were over at our friend's house flipping through a catalog about happenings in our area when I saw an advertisement for a Fasching cruise. I immediately asked if Fasching was the same as Fasnacht Day, and no one seemed to know what I was even talking about. Turns out, Fasching is basically the German Carnival and Faschnut Day is, of course, still the Tuesday before Lent right in the middle of the Fasching celebration.

Fasching is basically a giant, week long party here in Germany. Most of it involves dressing up in costumes (like Halloween), parades, heavy drinking and breaking glass all over the streets. Occasionally, you'll also see young men trying to persuade women to kiss them, but mostly it's just drunken craziness in costumes. Yet somehow, it's also relatively family friendly.

Two weekends before Fasnacht Day, we took a riverboat cruise in Frankfurt to celebrate. It was basically just a party where everyone was dressed up crazy. I went as what appeared to be an Eskimo and Greg was probably the Phantom of the Opera. Our friends thought I looked much more like the water bender from The Last Air Bender. I never saw the movie, only the cartoon, so I can't comment on that. Greg mostly looked like a drunk man wearing a cape. I learned that Germans really love polka music. It was a lot of fun.

This past Sunday, Fasching was in full swing in our city so we went to the parade. The downtown area was completely cleared out except for party goers and there were a ton of interesting costumes. The floats of the parade threw out candies and little trinkets for kids like balls, cell phone jewelry (?) and packages of tissues (which, by the way, strongly resembled condoms). It was kind of weird. Occasionally, a float would be handing out bottles of champagne or shots. A lot of drunk young people decided to just jump right into the parade and the Politzei had to shoe them away. Kids lined the streets to catch the goodies being thrown and yelling "HALLO!" to the floats. There was broken glass everywhere and all of the restaurants were charging money to use their bathrooms. The polka music was inescapable. It was an interesting event. Apparently, the city across the river throws a much bigger party on Monday and Tuesday, but we had to work. Also, Cologne is known for being the best place for Carnival in Germany. Perhaps next year we will try to experience the fun somewhere else.

Selling bread and donuts on a rolling cart on the parade route.

Holding up the parade again.

I'm happy that I got to see what Fasnacht Day really is, other than a day to eat potato donuts. Apparently, like everything else in Germany, it's a day to get trashed in public and eat bratwursts. Maybe next year I'll get a little bit more into the festivities and get a real costume!