Carnaval 2013

As promised, I am here to update you on our weekend celebrating Carnaval.  Weekend is an overstatement in our case, but I'll get to that. 

Carnaval is celebrated in the south of the Netherlands, but not in the north.  That is because Carnaval is a Catholic celebration leading up to Lent.  And in the north of the Netherlands, everyone is Protestant.  Do these people actually attend church regularly and practice their faith?  Maybe not. But it gives them a good reason to party!  And boy did they party.  Todd and I decided our best bet would be to check out the parade that was happening on Saturday afternoon.  That's the real kick-off to the celebrations, at least in Eindhoven.  Todd had been forewarned by his co-workers that we absolutely, 100% needed to wear costumes in order to fit in.  They were right.  At the parade, out of thousands of people, I may have seen 1 or 2 who weren't donning costumes.  Young and old alike were extravagantly dressed.  In fact, we felt pretty tame looking like this:

We went with the Bavarian theme, although my old Dutch costume from the Tulip Time parades would have come in real handy!  The parade was pretty funny.  The floats were mostly weird, and dare I say ugly, but it was certainly entertaining.

It was a bone chilling day, so we didn't make it through the whole parade, which lasted for over 2 hours.  Instead, we figured we better check out some of the other action happening throughout town. Our first stop was Stratumseind, which boosts the longest street of bars in the Netherlands. It was a mad house.  

After checking out that madness, we headed over to a large tent that had been constructed on the main market square.  This place was also packed, but not quite as bad.  They had bands playing loud music and there was lots of dancing.   The bands were always all dressed up, and they played a lot of covers, which was fun for us.  So we partook in the revelry for a bit.  

Our last move was to the bar across the street.  This was our last move because, literally, we couldn't move.  The place was so full, that we were smashed against people.  By that point, I had reached my limit in terms of people pushing me, so we decided to hop on the bikes and head for home.  What we find most amazing is that people have continued to party for days on end.  We were completely done with Carnaval with one day of being out and about.  The festivities began on Saturday, and when Todd rode his bike to work yesterday downtown, everyone was still out and all dressed up!   I don't know how they do it.  Seems a little crazy to me.  Perhaps people who have been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans can relate?  Regardless, we were happy to take part in the tradition, and I'm sure we'll do something again for it next year.  Next year, however, my costume goal is going to be warmth.  There was a group of Santas walking around town, maybe I'll try to fit in with them next year.