The weekend of February 18-19 was Karneval up here in northern Germany. Though not as popular as in the Rhineland, there were still some festivities going on. On a visit to Bremen for an exhibit the week before, I ended up running into a parade full of different percussion/samba ensembles. On the more traditional side, Hannover had a little parade, but it paled in comparison to the largest parade around here in Braunschweig. This parade lasted around three hours, though I missed the very end because of a sudden hail / snow storm that dispersed the crowds.
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| Bremen |
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| Braunschweig |
What to expect from parades:
* Floats and marching bands alternating. Groups would dress up in a theme, and the parades themselves would have a theme, though normally fairly abstract. However, there are also your traditional costumes with a jester-looking cap. Marching bands were all from different carnival groups, and ranged from good to bad.
* The Karneval call / responses - for example, in Braunschweig they would yell "Brunswick" and then you would reply "Helau."
* Kamelle - candy rains down from the floats. Though most of it is the generic hard candy variety, if you're lucky you'll get a bag of popcorn or gummy bears. Sometimes there are junky toys, waffles, bread rolls, or beer.
Unfortunately, most of my videos didn't really capture the essence of the parades, but here's an example of a float in Braunschweig with people in traditional costumes singing one of the typical German "Schlager" songs.
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