Karneval & Prague

The lack of updates has been due to the fact that I was in Düsseldorf and Köln (aka Cologne in English) for Karneval and then in Prague. Ethel, my friend/supervisor from my internship at Fuse, arrived in Berlin last Friday, and on Saturday we flew to Düsseldorf for Karneval. Why Düsseldorf, of all cities, you ask? Christian had invited me (or us) to celebrate Karneval there with him and his friends since it's his hometown. I figured it would be a great experience, especially with a local. He and Pablo repeatedly told me that I had no idea what to expect and they were completely right.

After walking around the city, Ethel and I met up with Christian and his friends and went to their local pub, Schaukel Stühlchen. Everyone, from old couples to teenagers, was on the street dancing outside the pub to music blasting from speakers when we went in. We spent most of the night there, where Ethel and I (and everyone else) drank a lot of the local Schlösser Alt bier, although I had been warned to not drink it. (My verdict: Not bad.) The music was a mix between traditional German Karneval songs (which Christian and his friends all knew and sang along to), 80s pop songs, current dance hits, and indie rock. After a considerable time at Schaukel Stühlchen, Christian, his friend Sven, Ethel, and I went dancing at a club called Stone, where the music was mostly indie rock and German pop. We danced through the night until we got kicked out at about 4:30/5 a.m. and Ethel and I took a cab back to our hostel and tried not to wake up the other people in the room. It was a bit difficult for me because I was on the top bunk, and after having a lot to drink, let's just say it wasn't an easy task climbing up.

Sunday we woke up at 9 a.m. and working on four hours of sleep, Ethel and I took a local train to Köln to see the Karneval festivities there. I would just like to say that the cathedral (Kölner Dom) is probably the most impressive cathedral I've ever seen. Besides that, the festivities were quite obvious with costumed people lining up on the street to watch the parade. The parade basically was all the schoolkids dressed up marching around and it felt like it lasted forever. Ethel and I got tired of watching and were cold, so wandered the city in search of anything but the parade. That mission seemed to have failed, mostly because everything was closed. We did, however, sit in a Burger King drinking tea (since it was about the only place open) observing some teenagers drunk to the point of passing out. This was about 4 in the afternoon. Because we had partied late into the night before, we couldn't bring ourselves to drink the local beer, Kölsch, nor really party. We went back to Düsseldorf and went to sleep relatively early in order to be ready for Rosenmontag.


Rosenmontag is apparently the biggest day of Karneval and we spent it in Düsseldorf. We met up with Christian and his friends again to watch (yet another) parade. However, this parade was much better than the one we had seen in Köln because it was just float after float. Much like Jackie and Doug observed with their Karneval experiences, it seemed to be a day of not being politically correct. Then again, people were dressed up as Mexicans and Indians that would've given Middlebury College a heart attack. There was even one float of "Africans," a.k.a. Germans dressed up as Africans and wearing blackface. I was slightly shocked, but got over it relatively quickly. (There is, afterall, no real word for "PC" in German, except for "PC.")

Watching the parade was an experience in itself. Everyone was drinking beer, whether they had bought it from a stand or had brought it in a wagon, bag, etc. The floats that went by ranged from political humor (making fun of Dubyah or Angie), to local humor (which Ethel and I didn't get), to just plain fun. There were also several marching bands that made me really excited. By the end of the parade, everyone was ready to hit up the bars, and so, we did. We went back to Schaukel Stühlchen and continued to drink and party from about 4 pm to 9 pm or so. It was pretty much like Saturday night except for the fact that more beer was consumed at an earlier hour.

We left the bar to go to a club where there were not that many people there. It actually didn't matter at that point because everyone was pretty much drunk and having a good time regardless. At one point, a whole drum line came into the club and played some traditional German Karneval songs. It was a very good night and was especially great because we got to do as the locals did. My conclusion is that Germans really know how to party and we need to bring Karneval to the U.S. However, it would probably never work, just because there's such a stigma against drinking and we are always concerned about being PC.

On Wednesday, Ethel and I flew from Köln/Bonn airport to Prague. I'm not going to spend much time detailing what went down in Prague, because frankly, not much happened. We actually wanted to try to change our train tickets to come back a day earlier, but unfortunately, it wasn't possible. Prague is a beautiful city, unlike many German cities, since it was basically untouched during the World Wars. It is definitely beautiful in the sense of being a romantic European city and it made me miss having someone with me to just walk through the streets admiring it.
The people we met at the hostel all said the same exact thing: Once you see one thing in Prague, you've basically seen everything. In my opinion, this is true. A good metaphor: Prague is the beautiful woman with no personality. Berlin is the average-looking woman with tons of personality. We explored Prague Castle, saw the Franz Kafka and Toy Museums, and an Alfons Mucha gallery. (Not the museum) To make a long story short, I appreciate Berlin even more now and I'm glad to be back.

Ethel left this morning and I have five days to myself before Alexandra comes to visit me here in Berlin. We'll probably stay here in Berlin and then a week after she arrives, I leave for Japan (when she goes home). More adventures to come.

You can see pictures from Karneval here, but I warn you, there are many drunken photos.
You can see pictures from Prague here.

2006 Winter Olympics: Torino, Italy

This weekend actually started off here in Berlin when I told Pablo that I'd go with him and his friends clubbing on Friday. Apparently it was the best drum & bass party of the year at this club called Watergate, which overlooks the Oberbaum Brücke, and the entry fee was 10€. (Expensive by Berlin standards.) I'd said that I would only stay until 2, the latest at 2:30, because I had to wake up early to get to the airport. Well, go figure, I stayed longer and actually enjoyed the drum & bass floor more than the "mainstream" floor. To my complete surprise, I was pretty much dancing (or rather, bouncing) the entire time, whether because I wanted to, or to avoid some people (whose names will not be mentioned, but Alex, you know who I mean if you're reading this).

I left Watergate at around 4 a.m, walked home, got in the shower (couldn't go to sleep all gross!), and went to bed by 4:30-5 a.m. I woke up at 8:45 a.m. in order to eat breakfast, make sure I had all my things packed, and got to the airport. I had a layover at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris and the weather was pretty crappy, but all went smoothly and I got to Torino on time where I met up with Hugo and his friend Elizabeth.

As soon as we got into the city, we rushed off to pick up our tickets and then rushed off again so that Hugo and I could get to our hockey game on time. When we got to the arena, the game was only 4 minutes into the first period and it was already loud, packed, and full of energy. Hugo and I kept exclaiming to each other that it was unbelievable that we were actually there in Torino at the hockey game. We had been planning the hockey game for over a year already!

The game was pretty awesome, mostly due to the energy from the fans. There were lots of, "Settle down, boys!," "Stop being so sloppy!," and "What the fuck?!" from the Americans. (I didn't understand the Slovakian fans) From me, I kept shouting in German: "Nein!!!," "Was macht ihr?!," and "Verdammt Scheiss!" (I concluded that it was much more expressive, and well, it just came out in German, except for the times that I was shouting, "Yeaaah!!") I have to admit, both teams seemed to be a bit sloppy, but especially the Americans. There were times when it seemed that players forgot they had the puck, just didn't look up to see a pass coming, or just passed it way out yonder or to the Slovakians.

Too bad there isn't a website "overheardattheolympics.com." (If you don't know what I'm referring to, check this website out now. It's hilarious.) At the hockey game, some of the best quotes included a guy on his cell phone ("Dude! Are you watching TV now? The US vs. Slovakia game? Yeah! I'm there, man! I'm AT the Olympics! I'm behind the American bench! Well, no, farther up. But I'm there, man!") and another guy behind us ("Um, I'm already drunk. It's only the first period, isn't it?"). I'm sure some of the stuff that Hugo and I said were pretty ridiculous. We tried doing some Middlebury cheers (Tiny Bubbles and the one when we win), but we couldn't remember all of Tiny Bubbles. (Beer = cheer, Gin = win, that's all we remembered).

After the hockey game, we went to meet up with Devin, except that it didn't really happen. Hugo got us really lost and we wound up near the Olympic Village for the athletes, when Devin was by the Sponsors Village. Two hours later than we had said, we finally met at the train station Porta Nuova. We were supposed to meet up with Hugo's other friends who were in 2 other groups, but that just didn't happen. Time went by rather quickly, and by the time we knew it, it was too late to get the last trains and too early to get the first trains out to Sangano, where we were staying with a family. I was exhausted and admittedly cranky since I was running on 4 hours or less of sleep. Hugo, Devin, and I decided to just sit and hang out in the train station for a little bit, then we met up with one group of his other friends. We finally got a train at around 5 a.m., got back to where we were staying and went to sleep at 7 a.m. (Yup, a 23 hour day for me.)

Porta Nuova, the train station, with the Olympic Rings

Devin and Hugo had said they were going to wake up early, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. We ended up getting up at 1 p.m. and getting into Torino by around 2:30/3 pm, where we tried figuring out train tickets out to Sauze d'Oulx, where the freestyle skiing was taking place. (It's rather close to the French border.) That took up more time than we expected, so instead of wandering the city as we had planned, we grabbed some food quickly and got on the train.

The ride out to Sauze d'Oulx was about 45 minutes, and then an additional 30 minutes by bus up the mountain. When we got there, it was snowing pretty hard, and when neared the actual venue, we were told that the event was postponed until 8:30 pm. We found a small bar that was relatively empty and drank some hot drinks, but then heard that the event was postponed even more. Finally, we actually got word that due to the heavy snowfall, the event was to be rescheduled for Tuesday, 21 February. It was disappointing, since Devin and I were flying back here to Berlin on Monday, and Hugo and Elizabeth had to go back to Ferrara for classes. Elizabeth and I trekked back down to the venue to see if anything could be done about a refund, where we got the last forms in English to get it.

Everyone had to leave the mountain since almost no one was staying there. It was rather chaotic trying to stay together and not get seperated, but we managed. (Devin's quote: "I think we just got seperated from our peeps.") The buses were boarded and people were in lines for the next buses to come, but nothing was moving. No traffic was coming or going. Word got around that the climb down the mountain was only 30 minutes. Devin, Hugo, Elizabeth, and I decided that we might as well walk, since the traffic wasn't moving and it didn't seem that we were going to get a bus.

First of all, the walk down was way longer than 30 minutes. It took us 2 hours to get walk to the train station. What we didn't realize was the mountain was 1,509 meters high (or 4,950 feet). Additionally, it took a little longer than expected because there was snow and nobody wanted to fall. The whole experience felt like a disaster movie with loads of people walking by stuck cars, or it felt like a zombie movie because there were points where there just lots of people walking in the dark. Then suddenly there would be one shining light, and everyone was just surprised to see there was light.

It was pretty beautiful walking down. The mountains eerily rose out of the darkness and were these huge gray masses with very little light. Looking up from where we had walked from, there were bright lights illuminating the whisps of cloud and outlining the crowds of people walking down. Additionally, we walked through one or two very small mountain towns that were very rustic and Italian. I have several pictures up on my Flickr account and you can view all my pictures from Torino as a slideshow, if you want.

So all in all, Sunday was spent trying to get an event that didn't even happen, but it still made for a fun experience. On Monday, we actually woke up early (7 a.m.) and got into Torino by 9:30 so that we could explore. We first went to go see the Shroud of Turin at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. We had kept making jokes all weekend that this was the one damn thing in Turin that we had to see, and it had better not be a disappointment, like a giant piece of toilet paper or something. We only could see a replica of it with pictures of it x-rayed underneath, and then way up front, the Shroud was in a case of aluminum and glass lying horizontally. I could see how it sort of looked like Jesus, but as an atheist, I wasn't that convinced, though it was pretty remarkable to see. (I personally thought it looked like a big tablecloth with a big coffee stain on it that happened to look like Jesus. Not that I'm saying it's real or not. That's just my perception of what it looked like to me.)

After the Shroud, we went to go see La Mole Antonelliana, which was a synagogue at one point and is currently the highest point in Turin. Unfortunately, the elevator to the panaromic view was closed because it was Monday. La Mole is basically that thing that you see in all the Visa ads with a ski jumper going past it. Devin and Hugo kept saying that it looked like a large stump coming out of a dome. I suppose that's one way you could describe it.

La Mole Antonelliana

Next, we went and got some food near the Sponsors Village, where this huge plastic thing that Devin described as an Aggro Crag. (Yes, that thing from that show Guts on Nickelodeon.) I forgot to take a picture of it. After lunch, Devin had to leave to catch a train to Milan, where her flight back was leaving from. Hugo, Elizabeth, and I went into the Sponsors Village to see if we could buy anything, but it turned out that the huge Olympic store was in some plaza a bit farther out than I could go, since I had to catch a bus to the airport for my flight. However, we did see past Olympic torches on display there. The three of us departed at the Sponsors Village and I walked back to a smaller Olympic store closer to the Medals Plaza. I came to the conclusion that there wasn't anything worth buying, so I didn't spend any money.

I was actually awake for part of from Torino to Paris. The view from the plane was stunning and I had to take some pictures of the Alps. After that, I actually fell asleep so deeply after not getting much sleep in Torino that the only thing that woke me was when the plane landed. I had to admit that I was relieved to get back to Berlin, if only because the public transportation here is so much more reliable.

The view of the Alps from the plane from Torino to Paris

The rest of the week will be devoted to resting up from the Olympics and getting ready for Karneval in Düsseldorf and Köln. From what I hear, it'll be.....interesting.