#kultur
Today is »Rosenmontag« (literally ›Rose Monday‹ or ›Rosormåndag‹) in Germany. Especially in the parts of the Rhineland like Cologne, Düsseldorf or Mainz Rosenmontag is celebrated with big festivities.
Rosenmontag is the peak of the carnival celebration week, that started on Thursday and will end on Tuesday night. Besides big parades on streets there are a lot of costume balls with comedy program in big meeting halls.
Today, the Rosenmontag is celebrated with big parades in big towns but even in smaller villages. Often people are dressed up with creative costumes.
The oldest and biggest as well as probably the most famous parade takes place in Cologne. This years parade has over 11,500 participants, 130 music bands and over 100 dressed up wagons with different mottos. Common mottos of these years are the NSA surveillance affair and the affairs regarding the ADAC (Germanys automobile club).
There are a lot of traditions like that participants throw candies for children and women get flowers from men in exchange for kisses. Children have to scream for »Kamelle« (means candy) and women for »Strüsschen« (means bouquet). Altogether a stock of 150 tons of candies are thrown in Cologne as well as 300,000 bouquets this year.
Every city or region has its own interjection slogan like »Alaaf« in Cologne, »Helau« in Düsseldorf and Mainz or »Olau« in Koblenz.
During the festivities many people drink a lot of alcoholic beverages, especially in the night hours in the main bars and discotheques. For foreign visitors this can appear strange.
The Local collected some more photos of these year’s parades.
Pic: Cup'oCofi: http://flic.kr/p/boXLr3
Quellen:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenmontag
http://www.tagesschau.de/schlusslicht/karneval408.html
http://www1.wdr.de/themen/panorama/sp_karneval14/rosenmontag284.html
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A HAMMER AND A COMPASS, SURROUNDED BY A RING OF RYE
Palast der Republik, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
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i just think that the double standard with how everyone (and i’m not just talking ab the west btw) has treated the ukraine invasion vs issues literally anywhere else is insane. and no i’m not just talking about the straight up racist journalists (although that was also . whew ! shocked but not surprised) but rather how it seems that this time around, everyoneseems to understand that you can’t ‘separate business / art from politics’. remember when a muslim soccer player spoke up against the atrocities that the chinese government perpetuates against the uyghur muslims and then arsenal terminated his contract because they are 'apolitical as an organization’? and yet manchester united players standing up for ukraine have been applauded for it. remember when iceland held up the palestine flag during eurovision as a show of solidarity and they were fined 5000 euros for it? and yet russia is banned from this year’s contest.
and i know white people are going to misunderstand this on purpose, so i’m just stating this upfront: i completely support ukraine, and i think it’s important that russia is shown, on a world platform, that they cannot get away with the invasion of a sovereign state. but the fact that suddenly, mixing politics with sport, business and art has become the new normal and socially acceptable because it’s europeandthe west and not filthy violent brown people is just too ironic for me to not point out. and btw if anyone starts talking about the 'oppression olympics’ or wtv to discredit the very real differences between the treatment of white & brown people on a global level and the dehumanization of asians i will smash your head into a brick wall.
Die Stabkirche in Hahnenklee im Harz. Sie ist der Nachbau einer ähnlichen Stabkirche die in Lærdal in Norwegen steht.
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