Helau! Helau! Helau!

This post is for the weekend of Friday 2/12 to Sunday 2/14

Friday was a pretty awesome day, if nothing else but relaxing. A group of ten people went to München for the weekend, so our numbers were dwindled. Originally I was planning to go to Dusseldorf for the weekend to meet up with Ellen (who is in Ireland) and Steph (who is in Scotland) and enjoy the Karneval festivities with them, but those plans fell through. (The three biggest centers for Karneval are Mainz, Dusseldorf, and Köln.) If I haven’t explained Karneval before, it is kind of like Mardi Gras in the United States. People dress up in crazy outfits and there are many parades and celebrations all over the cities. Rosenmontag is the Monday before Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday, and Fasching is the actual day of Mardi Gras. Karneval technically starts in November and culminates in the arrival of the weekend before Fasching and then Rosenmontag and Fasching itself. The whole point is to welcome in spring and seems to be somewhat analogous to welcoming the season of Lent like Mardi Gras does for the U.S.

So I didn’t make it to Dusseldorf, which I regret, but that doesn’t mean the weekend was lost. Friday night, a few of us went back out to the Chinese place and enjoyed some more delicious (and cheap) Chinese food. Afterwards we hung out in the Wohnheim and went to the Goethe-Party. Not too many people were there because they were off enjoy München, but it was a relaxing good time. I didn’t stay out too late because I knew I had an early morning on Saturday.

At 7:30 am on Saturday, a group of about 25 of us Goethe-Institut students embarked on a trip to Mainz. It was a Goethe-sponsored trip and only cost 16 Euros total. Can’t complain about that. Mainz is an old city that sits on the Rhein River, and we all went to get a little taste of Karneval. We had a tour guide from Die Freunde des Goethe who knew Mainz well who lead us around the city. After the three hour drive made in a fluorescent yellow-green tour bus (called an Omni-bus, which if you know any Latin, you will find that name . We dismounted from the bus and walked to the Rheinland-Palatinate Länder Museum, which a history museum of the Bundesstaat (state, pretty much—Schwäbisch Hall is in the Baden-Württemburg Bundesstaat) of Rheinland-Palatinate, where Mainz is. Mainz is also the capital of that region.

The museum was pretty cool. First of all, we got free Berliners and Kaffee (if you remember from my first few mornings at the bakery, Berliners were my pastry of choice) at the museum. And by free of course, I mean that our 16 Euro fee had already covered the cost of the delicious jelly-filled donuts. I definitely ate four. Woo! After that we explored the museum, led by a woman from the museum. She was very informative and nice and was also good at explaining things well. She reminded me of a German teacher because she knew how to explain something we didn’t understand. It was also very encouraging that I could understand pretty much everything she said. It’s always interesting to see all the art and history from each region, and the age, detail, and volume of these artifacts blow my mind.

After we left the museum, we walked around and explored the city some. We happened onto a random Karneval concert. The music is mostly drums/percussion and glockenspiel. Haha it was pretty entertaining to witness. I swear I saw some of the strangest things. By the end of the day, I was almost desensitized to how weird some of these people were dressing. We ended up at the Dom St. Martin, the famous and impressive looking church in the middle of the city. It is so hard to describe all of the things we saw. Mainz has a lot of Roman history in it, plus it is where Gutenberg (the guy who invented the printing press, if you don’t recognize that—probably one of the most important people of millennium. Without the printing press, a lot doesn’t happen.) lived and worked. There is also Gutenberg University there, too. On top of that, all of the administration buildings of the state are there. So much history!

We unfortunately couldn’t get inside the Dom because it was closed at the time we had allotted to explore it. Instead, we wandered around the city some more, seeing a lot of historical buildings and hearing stories about the history from our guide. We had a two hour break for lunch so we found a nice Restaurant called “am Dom” which means at the Dom. It was pretty delicious and ended up being a microbrewery. I am pretty convinced that every other restaurant in Germany is a microbrewery, though. I had a delicious crepe filled with beef and vegetables, and of course I enjoyed a home-brewed Hefe-Weisen. That is probably the most common beer over here. It’s a wheat beer if you didn’t know. The bartender at the bar, by the way, was definitely dressed for Karneval. He was wearing this crazy orange shirt with suspenders and striped tiger pants.

After lunch, we all met up again and proceeded down the street from the Dom. Here is where we saw the vast majority of our Karneval craziness. A parade was going on as we walked down the street. The entire street was blocked off, and there were stands to sit in. Also, people lined the street as far as the eye could see. Groups of people with certain themed costumes and floats came in hordes. It was extremely entertaining to watch. The floats had people on them that threw out candy. Everyone yells “Helau!!!” every two seconds. Helau doesn’t really have a meaning per se, but it is rather the expression of Karneval. Think of it as a “Cheers!” of sorts. It differs based on the city, too. Mainz says “Helau!” while Köln yells “Helauf!” and Dusseldorf says “Alaaf!” So after about 30 minutes to an hour of watching the parade and screaming “Helau!” we moved on, leaving the parade still going strong behind us.

We then went to St. Stephen’s church, which has been a key church for the city and a symbol of freedom in Germany during the reign of the Third Reich. The church has all blue stained-glass windows inside, so the interior is a very somber blue hue. We sat and listened to a little history about the church and then walked around the courtyard outside. After that, we had about an hour of free time before we had to board the bus to go home. Once we got back to the city center, the parade was just finishing, so people were flocking to the bars. We all entered one bar only to be greeted by packed house. Randomly, we heard John Denver’s “Country Roads” playing over the speakers and I saw several Germans singing along. Crazy! And then they started singing German songs, and it was clear that service was not going to come quickly here. A few of us left and headed back to the market-like area where a ton of food stands and drink stands were set up. We picked up some Gluhwein, which is hot red wine with spices. It was pretty good and definitely helped warm us up on the cold and brisk afternoon. We then took the long way back to the bus, seeing all we could before jumping back on our neon vehicle. The ride back was very sleepy for everybody, and it was interesting to watch the sunset on the snowy German country side. Also, the trip there and back accounts for my first experiences with the Autobahn. People definitely go fast, that’s for sure, but our bus didn’t exactly fly like all of the Audi’s, BMW’s, and Mercedes.

Once we got back that night, we decided to have pasta for dinner! We went to the supermarket and purchased all the necessary items. Then Paola, one of my Italian friends, made the pasta, and we feasted. It is the first time I can say that I ate true authentic pasta made by an Italian. It was, of course, delicious. We just hung out in the kitchen for the rest of the night, talking and sharing stories among four or five of us.

Sunday, again, I woke up early to depart to Nürnberg. Andrew, from Washington D.C., and Bernardo, from Brazil, had made their way there the day before and had spent the night in a hostel. Ben, Derek, and I headed there Sunday morning to meet up with them and explore the city. The day started off almost comically. We had planned on meeting at the bus stop at 8:30 am to ride to the Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental train station to catch the 9:59 train to Nürnberg. However, we did this just assuming that the bus schedule was the same on Sundays as it is on Saturdays. We were wrong. The bus came at 8:25, which we missed, and then again at 9:45, which wouldn’t allow us enough time to catch the train. We could have called a taxi, but that would have cost money, and we are all about saving Euros. What else did we do? We walked the 5 kilometers to the train station. Haha

We trudged through the snow for about 35 minutes before we made it to the train station around 9:20. We grabbed breakfast and were about to head to our train when there was an announcement that it was delayed 30 minutes. So yeah…we could have gotten breakfast and then taken the bus to the train station at 9:45 anyway. Oh well, we got some good exercise in and saved some money. The train didn’t end up coming until 10:45 or so, we were standing around for a while waiting for it.

We finally arrived in Nürnberg around noon, and Andrew and Bernardo met us at the train station. Derek and Andrew grabbed McDonalds at the train station for both the taste of home and the free coffee mug that came with any meal. We then headed to the inner city and explored the “older” parts. I put older in quotations because the city was leveled after WWII because it was a center of Nazi activity, so even the old parts looked relatively new. We headed into the Länder Museum for Bayern (Nürnberg is in Bavaria and Bavaria = Bayern auf Deutsch) and explored that for a little bit. The Roman history and the Middle Ages section were cool, but I wasn’t too keen on the modern art. We then left there and headed to the Nazi Museum.

The Nazi Museum, called Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände (which literally means Documentation Center Nazi Party Rallying Grounds), is all about the rise of power of the Nazis and how they tried to build an empire. The first ¾ of the museum is about the Nazis gaining control of the hearts and minds of the people and how Hilter manipulated the system. The last parts are about the war and then the Nürnberg trials at the end. It was definitely very interesting, and everyone gets a little handheld speaker that guides you through the museum in your language of choice. The best part about the museum, though, was the architecture and the location. The location is, of course, where the huge Nazi rallys were held. If you have ever seen films of huge crowds of German soldiers marching by torch light or walking in formation while saluting Hilter, it was here. The museum is actually built into the unfinished construction of the huge Congress hall there that was going to serve for Nazi regime once the war was over. The Zeppelin Field, the only finished part of the area, is the famous spot where Hilter stands at a podium, addressing hordes of Nazi soldiers, and then watches them all march by him in formation. The museum design was very intriguing, too. It had a very jagged look. There were corners and sharp edges everywhere. It was designed to make you feel uncomfortable. Obviously, that was part of the feeling invoked when being at the very site of all of these Nazi rallies. Also, the museum was set up so that you followed a twisting path that seemed very convoluted and confusing (although it was very easy to follow). This, of course, was to mimic the minds and the hearts of the German people as they were manipulated by Hilter and led down a destructive and terrible path that they had no idea how to manage other than follow it. The strangest and eeriest part of the experience was actually walking to the Zeppelin Field. We were in the museum until it closed and marched the field in the dark. It is lit, and even though we weren’t there during the day, it still was an impressive and impactful sight to absorb. We actually walked up to the podium where Hilter stood to give his speeches. It was definitely creepy and eerie. I hope to make it back there and see it in the daylight too. We took pictures standing there, and I almost felt guilty smiling while standing at such a somber place.

After we left, we went back to the hostel where Andrew and Bernardo had spent Saturday night and grabbed their bags. We tried to sit down at a restaurant (that was also a microbrewery—surprise) to get some dinner, but the service was just taking too long. We had to catch the 8:35 train back to Schwäbisch Hall because the next one didn’t leave until 5 am. We instead grabbed a quick meal (I, naturally, had a döner…it was nothing though compared to Bali’s—the one in Hall). We grabbed the train back and made it home by 11. What another great weekend.