Sometimes people in other countries do funny things. Sometimes they d o funny things in large groups. In that case, you buy yourself a ticke t and go there. I was at such an event.
The event is called the Basler Morgenstraich. Let me break down that series of meaningless symbols. Basel is a city in Switzerland. It is t he closest Swiss city to Freiburg (1 hour away by train, so probably a round 30 miles or so). Morgen=morning. And Straich is the Swiss spelli ng (or an old Swiss spelling) of Streich, which means "practical joke" . So it's the morning practical joke in Switzerland.
So here's the thing. Here they celebrate the last day before lent (th e time of fasting before Easter, for those of you who don't know). The typical celebration is to gorge oneself, as you're about to go on a f ast. The German celebration, however, is mixed with a strange pagan tr adition (similar to Christmas, but much more extreme then just a tree) . They dress themselves of as evil spirits in order to scare off the r eal evil spirits, because when the real evil spirits see themselves, t hey get scared and run away. Of course, few modern Germans actually th ink anything of this tradition, but that's the root in any case.
So this was a Christian holiday, and was thus regulated by the church (back in the pre-protestent era). The church said that after Ash Wedn esday the party is over and you gotta get fasting. The people in Basel said no. From one report, their method of saying no was chopping off the heads of the church messengers and sending them back to the church (the church being the larger organization and not an individual build ing). Then they decided they would march around the city and celebrate this festival in the middle of the night on the Sunday night/Monday m orning after Ash Wednesday. And they're still doing that today.
The event itself is free and is attended by thousands of people (I've heard reports of around 100,000). And the event starts at 4:00AM. At 4:00AM all the lights in the city are turned off, the marchers turn on their tourches (now mostly electric, but whatever), and they whip out their little flutes, and they play a tune. Not just any tune. One tun e. All of them. Over and over and over without stopping for around 45 minutes. And there's drumming. And they march around the streets playi ng this tune. It's a very weird effect.
There really isn't too much more to say, so I'll put in some pictures .
First, here's a picture of Nadja in the train (you can see me in the reflection).
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/Nadja1.JPG
And here's me:
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/Me1.JPG
And here's a picture of our small group minus Nadja, who took the pic ture:
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/Us1.JPG
And a second picture:
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/Us2.JPG
And finally the main attraction. Weird people!
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/MS1.JPG
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/MS2.JPG
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/MS3.JPG
http://www.ftper.com/Germany/P2/MS4.JPG
That's it for now...
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