According to Wikipedia, Fasnacht- or carnival- is the time of the year when the reign of bad spirits of the cold and grim winter period is over and these spirits are symbolically being hunted down and expelled. So each year people dress up as demons, witches, earthly spirits and dreadful animals to enact this scene of symbolic expulsion.
All I know is, it makes for a very fun parade with lots of cool costumes, confetti throwing,
music,
wigs and face-painting,
wooden masks (one of my favorite parts),
REALLY cool costumes (I know I already mentioned cool costumes, but look at these ensembles!),
and cute little gnomes. Wait a minute! Who's that really cute one on the left?
Oh, it's Hazel!! In Brett's own words: "She's the cutest little blob I've ever seen." It did rather look like she was wearing a fat suit since she had on her puffy winter coat under Jethro's shirt. :)
The parade and the crowd wound up here at Hazel's school.
The parade and the crowd wound up here at Hazel's school.
There they had refreshments available, including cheese! (this is Switzerland, after all)
Mmm, see the raclette above? It's heated till it's all melty and bubbly on top, then the guy scoops it off onto your bread.
A cool thing about this parade was that it wasn't just the parade participants that dressed up, it was everyone. Too bad we didn't know ahead of time. But there's a Fasnacht parade in Bern in another week (this one was just for our little village), so maybe we'll have to find some clothes to dress up in for that one. Look at some of the sweet outfits--
A cool thing about this parade was that it wasn't just the parade participants that dressed up, it was everyone. Too bad we didn't know ahead of time. But there's a Fasnacht parade in Bern in another week (this one was just for our little village), so maybe we'll have to find some clothes to dress up in for that one. Look at some of the sweet outfits--
I don't know what he was--but I liked it.
So you can go away cold grim winter spirits! You're all symbolically and officially expelled!
6 comments:
hey so I was wondering, where is it in Switzerland that you are living? Like the name of the town/city/whatever? We had a foreign exchange student from Switzerland when I was a senior in high school.
Oh I LOVE it! I wondered how soon you would be thrown into the traditions of your new country. SO fun!
Can't wait to see more.
What did they sprinkle on their melted cheese?? Looks like I really want to make some now.
looks like a lot of fun, and those are some pretty awesome costumes.
I need to tell you about my strange dream that I had last night: I dreamt that because Jethro got lost I just flew on a whim to Switzerland to visit you. I didn't tell my husband or my kids, in fact I just left my kids all to themselves. So I'm in Switzerland with you and I call Dustin and tell him where I am. He's kind of mad and says, "I'm coming to get you!" Then I say, well what about the girls, I'll call Sarah (she's my neighbor that is due in 1 week with her second son). So I call Sarah and this guy answers the phone, and I can totally tell by the way he talks that he is gay. He talks all fruity and lispy... and I ask where Sarah is, and he tells me she's at the hospital having a baby and he is watching her son, Dylan. I'm all upset that this guy is with Dylan because I am supposed to watch Dylan when she goes to the hospital. And that was pretty much my dream. What an irresponsible mother I was! But I got to see you in Switzerland! Haha.
I am without words. Amazing! So cool! So very jealous of Switzerland-living!
This is my kind of holiday. We need to expel winter around here too!
P.S. We loved the poem!
I lived outside of Cologne Germany for a year and I went into the city for the big Carnival parades. Did the floats and people in the parades throw chocolate? Let's hope so. In Germany they also had these Sitzungen in the evenings where you'd go and the different clubs would host them and you'd sing (drink if you were the drinking kind, which they were) and in general get very very merry.
All the fun ends on Ash Wednesday so get it while the getting is good!
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