Last night our friendly french tour guide Michel organized a trip to switzeland to see the carneval, where everyone dresses up in crazy costumes, plays the flute or the drum, and carries fire on their backs to ward off the evil spirits from the town.
First we went to Leistal where the fire part took place, basically everyone was dressed up with as much fire protection as they could get, à la laurence of arabia, to avoid burnage. Burnage? Anyway so they walked from the castle at the top of the town and all throughout the streets to really chase away those evil demons. It was great.
Then we took the train back to Basel, Bâle, Basle, whatever you want to call it, where we looked around a little bit first and then went up to see the cathedral and the city. We found a little restaurant, lord of the rings style, and ordered some cheese tarte and beer to pass some of the night away, when we were kicked out of there we went to another café to wait til 4 came, when the next parade would start.
What inspires these people to dress like maniacs and play catchy tunes on their piccolos at 4am on a monday morning in the middle of the winter, i dont know, but we were just as crazy as them for having gone to watch it i guess. There was kind of a religious thing going on, of course, and the idea was that once you found a tune that you liked (because there were hundreds of groups of piccolos and drums going around, all with different costumes and themes) you were supposed to follow them through the town until you got tired or found a better song to do. The floats all had the church thing on the go but in almost a mocking manner (ex. a portrait of the pope with a clown nose on). We finished the night with some good german bratwurst in a heated tent-thingy and then took the train (which was freezing!) back to strasbourg where our beds were waiting. I slept till 4:30, so now ill probobly be up all night. Thanks Michel. :)
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