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Published: March 3rd 2010
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Hands up who loves February? It's a strange old month, February. Shorter than the rest, with a leap year further confusing friends and relatives of anyone unfortunate (or fortunate) enough to be born on the 29th of the 2nd. Christians will recognise February as the period of Lent, the period of the liturgical year lasting 40 days before Palm Sunday. Other people know it as party time.
Carnaval, Rio De Janeiro, February 13th-16th. Steamy city streets pulsating to the sounds of samba and rhythm-heavy drums. Barely dressed Latinos & Latinas gyrating seductively atop psychedelic floats to the cheers of thousands of onlookers.
Mardi Gras, Sydney, February 19th-March 7th. City streets filled to capacity with performers and cheering onlookers. Sexually ambiguous and proud, Sydney celebrates one of the world's best known Gay Pride events.
Mardi Gras, New Orleans, February -+16th. City streets thronged with joyous revelers, dressed in outrageous costumes celebrate alongside floats distributing bead necklaces and doubloons.
Carnival, Noord-Brabant Province, February 14th-16th. Towns and cities change their names whilst the general population celebrates the irreverent and crazy in a frosty whirlwind of drunken revelry and conspicuously average music.
Yep, February is a good time for a
shindig.
With the exception of the Sydney Mardi Gras, the festivities listed above share a Catholic history. The modern interpretations are distinctly secular and are known for their ability to provide a riotous good time.
In this little corner of the world, most Catholics live to the South of the Sewer*, in the provinces of Noord Brabant and Limburg. As such, the festivities surrounding Lent and geographically isolated to a small region in a small corner of the world. The result is a very unique and traditional take on a global phenomenon. The Carnival.
Fam is a born and bred
Brabander, and after a long hiatus away from her former stomping ground in Breda during Carnival, she was keen to show me this special part of her history. Seeing as Wageningen doesn't celebrate Carnival with the same voracity that Breda does, and to ensure that I received the full experience, we were relocating to her home town to stay with her father Roman.
Roman is a musician who for the last 25 years, played trumpet in the official band of the Prince. Yes, THE Prince. More on that later. Being the official band of the prince
involves a sizable time commitment that begins in November and ends in late February. Over the years he has developed a certain degree of celebrity status in Breda. He loves Carnival, he loves music and he loves beer. Who better to have as our host?
I'll attempt to explain the ridiculous, so as to make my account just a little more lucid than what it was to me. I'll do it in dot-points, being unsure of the correct order of things or the accuracy of what i'm saying.
So, a few random explanations about Carnival:
* Carnival is a celebration of the weird, crazy and ridiculous. It formerly begins at 11:11.11 on November the 11th (11/11 @ 11:11.11). Eleven being the number most associated with weirdness, craziness and the ridiculous. Fitting.
* Each town and city has a Prince. The Prince is elected in secret every 3 years. Not even Roman could (or would?) tell me anything about the process. There are rumours about each election, but nobody really knows how it happens.
* Each town and city adopts its Carnival name. Breda becomes Kielegat, Prinsebeek becomes Boemeldonck and Den Bosch becomes Oeteldonk. Streets signs
are changed, flags are raised and chaos rules. The names are such
purely because they sound funny to say aloud. Go on, give them a roll...
* All of the bars in town open and trade in tokens. Buy a handful of tokens and away you go.
* Dressing up in weird and wonderful outfits is compulsory.
* Each town celebrates with an Optocht. The Optocht is the culmination of a year's work in designing, building and decorating the most trippy and beautiful parade floats I have ever seen. Trust me, the scale and intricacy of these floats defies description. Hopefully the photos do them justice.
* The music is ridiculous. Carnival hits include "I Wish I Was a Flower Curtain" and the ever-popular, "There's a
Horse in my Hall". Right.
* A television station runs 24/7 for the duration of Carnival. From what I saw the presenters rarely went without a drink in their hand and were regularly toasting something or other.
* Drunkenness is common and accepted, particularly before 11am.
* Many locals have birthdays in the middle of November. Do the maths, things get loose.
We spent our time
alternating between parties, Optochts and recoveries. My outfit (kindly lent to me by Fam's brother, Ramon) was that of a Pirate. I was accompanied by Fam - a Gypsie, Ramon - a Marquis, Carola - a Geisha, and Ramon's housemate - an English cop. The dancing is basic - arm waving is popular and the
polonaise is the most effective manner of traversing crowded spaces. The
polonaise is like a conga line, only more restrained so as to not spill any beer. The temperature hovered between -4° and 2°, which did absolutely nothing to deter countless under-30's to risk hypothermia by getting around in fairy dresses and ballet outfits. These were mainly blokes, I might add.
Roman had put himself on a no-beer diet for the first few days, so by the Monday he was
a) thirsty, and
b) loaded with beer tokens. Him and I set about getting jolly and keeping warm whilst ooohing and ahhhing at each amazing float in Kielegat's Optocht. It was fine for him as he was only a short cycle from home. Fam and I, on the other hand, had a significant drive ahead of us. I dutifully drank each beer that was
offered to me, and after the 8th I was decidedly warm and fuzzy. Thankfully it was at that point that we made our exit. My last view of Carnival was that of Roman, crossing in front of a giant float to greet one of his old mates from the band. He was a happy man.
A lot of our neighbours were interested as to what my opinion would be about Carnival. Most of them are from regions that don't celebrate it, so it is as foreign to them as it was to me. Those who know me with attest that I have a soft spot for beer and dressing up. These being the two main requirements of a successful Carnival, my enduring love of the festival was never in doubt. Sure, the music was offensive, but the rest was nothing short of magnificent. Give me Kielegat in -2° over sexy sweaty Rio any day.
*The Rhine. Fam's words, not mine.
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Eric
non-member comment
Looks like a hell of a party
Chris, I must say that i thoroughly enjoy your blogs. I've been to Europe plenty of times with some interesting characters but none that can verbally describe the mayhem as well as you!! We'll be back in Holland in July for a long weekend and then off to Prague, Budapest, Milan, Venice and a few other places. I'm not sure how long you will be traveling in Europe but maybe we'll bump into each other in a pub somewhere. Also, If you happen to be in Holland on April 29/30 you are in for a good time. Here is a description from a friend of mine who lives in Amsterdam.... "Amsterdam on April 30!!!! That's our Queen's Day and the whole country is one big party!!! On April 29 in the evening we have Queens night where everybody goes Downtown to drink outside on the streets and to watch all the bands that play live performence's on stages throughout town. And than on Queen's Day itself people are allowed to sell all their old junk on the streets, so the entire country is one big yard sale. People mark the best spots in town with tape and 'reserved' for days before already and people are sleeping 'on their spot' the night before, because you can officially start selling your stuff at 5 or 6 in the morning. And if you don't have anything to sell, you just take your hangover from the night before, stroll around town, listen to the life performences again and drink some more." It seemed to me that this might be something of interest to you... Keep posting blogs. I look forward to reading more of them. PROST!!