Karnival!
Today is the very last day of Faschings, the German equivalent of Mardi Gras. I am sporting green hair, striped leggings and some obscenely unatural 'makeup' (that's Deutsch for 'makeup') and I shall head to the Bamberg parade with my classmates in a few minutes. We went on a fieldtrip to Würtzberg on Sunday and experienced 190 floats worth of celebration, plus an extremely friendly (and drunk) Viking and some mysterious German aliens, with whom we had our photos taken. The excursion was supposed to be for learning about the fancy churches, the Residence and other sorts of historical curiosities, but the excitment, color, and alcohol of Karnival was simply unavoidable, thank Gott. (I can only bear so many golden crucifixes in one day).
Bamberg is not quite so enthusiastic about this holiday time (which began 11 November) as Würtzberg, so we'll see how the parade plays out. I'm certain there will be candy tossed towards the sparsely populated streets, and perhaps perhaps perhaps at least a small number of beer bottles smashed on the cobblestones, but uncomparable to the eccentricity and drunkeness experienced the other day.
On Saturday, I traveled to Nürnberg with a woman from school. We went to see the old rallygrounds and the document center, which is a Huge museum about WWII. I learned so much there that I hadn't picked up on before, and saw a brief film interviewing older folks who were young at the time that Hitler had the Congress hall built in their city. The perspectives were Extremely interesting for someone like me, who has heard only the American version of the events. For these people, the whole situation was about 'fitting in', and acting as a community. Hitler united the people by making them feel special (through alienation, among other tactics), and of course that's what one seeks when they are young, so OF COURSE they marched in the displays, with pride! I thought of American politics several times in the exhibit. Very unnerving, the whole experience, but could it happen again? Not exactly, but almost, I believe. Shudder.
Bamberg is not quite so enthusiastic about this holiday time (which began 11 November) as Würtzberg, so we'll see how the parade plays out. I'm certain there will be candy tossed towards the sparsely populated streets, and perhaps perhaps perhaps at least a small number of beer bottles smashed on the cobblestones, but uncomparable to the eccentricity and drunkeness experienced the other day.
On Saturday, I traveled to Nürnberg with a woman from school. We went to see the old rallygrounds and the document center, which is a Huge museum about WWII. I learned so much there that I hadn't picked up on before, and saw a brief film interviewing older folks who were young at the time that Hitler had the Congress hall built in their city. The perspectives were Extremely interesting for someone like me, who has heard only the American version of the events. For these people, the whole situation was about 'fitting in', and acting as a community. Hitler united the people by making them feel special (through alienation, among other tactics), and of course that's what one seeks when they are young, so OF COURSE they marched in the displays, with pride! I thought of American politics several times in the exhibit. Very unnerving, the whole experience, but could it happen again? Not exactly, but almost, I believe. Shudder.
posted by SK at 4:19 AM
1 Comments:
One good thing about traveling abroad is the newer, fresher, more objective perspective you get of how things are 'back home'... Travel on :)
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