Once again it seems I have let time get ahead of me and I'm two weeks behind on an update. Fortunately, the events were so memorable this will still be a complete entry so fear not my young compatriots.
As you can imagine, anything following the skydiving weekend will seem rather bland by comparison. Fortunately this was not as prevalent as I thought it would be as the next weekend was Karneval, a huge celebration which entails getting in costume, partying and watching a parade while people throw candy at you. Now whoever came up with getting a bunch of people drunk then throwing candy at them must've been a genius and I wish I could shake his hand but I have a feeling he is no longer alive. Anyway, so the back story of Karneval, it is a celebration right before Ash Wednesday as a way to binge on all the things you're supposed to give up for Lent and just generally have a good time. Obviously there is drinking involved but, much to my surprise, even with a large portion of the city drunk it was not rowdy. Quite the opposite, actually, it was a very friendly environment with people just enjoying themselves. I'm sure there were some angry drunks somewhere but I never ran into any which is good. Thursday we started the celebration in the AiB then walked as a group across the Rhine to where the parade was. After the parade we all went to the old part of town back on our side of the Rhine to celebrate. I was planning on having a liquid blanket on for a majority of the day because I was dressed up in my MC Hammer costume and it was about 40 degrees out. This plan did not follow through, didn't really feel like drinking more when I got to the deciding point so I sobered up and, surprisingly, was not that cold for the day. Anyway, Thursday ended fairly early since we all started at 10am so by 6 most of us had crashed (couple people stayed out till 3am O.o).
For the majority of the weekend everyone else in the group went to Paris but I needed a weekend to myself (and I was too late to get a spot in the hostel/get a train ticket). I had a comfortable relaxed weekend which was needed for sure. Hopefully I get to Paris at some point later but I'm not too worried about it. Yea, I should go see it while I'm here but I'd prefer to go to the places that are less touristy, I can come back later in life and hit the big ones (Paris, Munich, Rome, etc).
Anyway, Karneval goes on all weekend including Monday so all the Paris people came back for that and we all went to Cologne because that's where the big parade took place. We arrived in Cologne at about noon and walked around to find a good spot to watch the parade from. To start we were a group of about 10 but Brandon and I both agreed we were tired of trying to maneuver a big group so we slowly held back until we broke off and went to find a place to watch the parade from on our own; it turned out to be a great idea. The parade itself was as anyone would expect, thousands of people walking past or riding floats in costume throwing candy. After 4 hours of standing and watching (at around 5pm) we decided we'd seen enough and walked around the city exploring some of the crazy party spots to see what it was like. As the sun was still up the parties weren't too insane but the streets were still packed. On that Monday, there were 1.5 million people there from other parts of the world but it didn't really feel overwhelming because the city is so big. As you can imagine, dressed up in a very thin costume in the cold got me a lot of interesting looks and asking "bist du kalt??" (are you cold?) but, surprisingly I was warmer than I was on Monday, totally sober. Once the sun dipped it started to get very cold so we decided to head back to Bonn and call it a day.
The next week was uneventful but the Saturday after that we went to Mainz for the day. On the whole I didn't really enjoy the day because there was no reason for us to be there (as I saw it) but it was mandatory for my World Religions class to I toughed out. One thing I did enjoy about the day is we got to go to the Gutenberg museum which was awesome. Got to see ancient books as well as the methods they used to use and a bunch of different presses. One of the gems of the museum was three Gutenberg bibles with different levels of embellishment. Also, I volunteered to learn how to use the press (very simple) and I got to print a page of the Bible which the tour guide then wrapped up and gave to me which I enjoyed a lot. For lunch we were on our own then got a tour of the city and cathedral in town (it's over 1000 years old) then at 5pm we all hopped back on the bus and drove home.
Quick side note, a couple days ago my host family made Mexican food for dinner which was delicious. It was the first Mexican food I've had since coming here and I was craving it to no end. Just thought I'd let you know =)
Auf Wiedersehen!
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