The Frauds

It was another Sunday in Deutschland. Steph and I, foolishly thinking that Dusseldorf would be a bit different from Berlin, have some stores open on Sunday; we wanted to go buy Tesafilm (scotch tape). The other night, in a vain attempt to shield our eyes from the rising sun, Steph tried to hang a blanket on the door and ended up breaking the top mini-curtain piece off the door. Our landlord is away at the moment and so we figured that if we fix the thing ourselves, we wouldn't have to admit that we are wrecking his place. So off we went to the Superstore equivalent "Aldi Süd " to find the parking lot deserted and the lights off in the store. Disappointed and dreading yet another Sunday in Germany, we sent off for Old Town. Since yesterday was a parade, we assumed there would be another one today...what actually happened was even better. All the young adults has turned the streets into their party zone. As we entered into the crowd, one of the German boys who was standing outside one of the beer gardens, looked at our German coloured leis, looked at us, smiled and said something about having a nice lei..or so we think. As we continued in closer to the heart of the party, the crowd got thicker and there were a group of Germans all huddled together singing at the top of their lungs. In Germany, it is custom to drink small bottles of alcohol and smash them on the ground so we were walking through a sea of glass...very dangerous. As we walked through the sea of Germans towards the Rhein, a "fairy" tapped Steph on the head and then tapped me on the head with her wand and said "Und selbst" and gave us Fairy Dust. Feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, we walked down the Rhein to look at the water. Steph, for some unknown reason, thoughts we should lose ourselves in the crowd again. We made our way through, avoiding the beer bottles, getting stuck to the cobble stones (made sticky by the beer), and the lit ends of cigarettes teens were waving around, and we found ourselves on the quieter side of the festival. There are many alcohol stands littering the streets (I am still fascinated by the concept of public drinking) and we found one that didn't sell beer but different cocktails. They had Sex On The Beach, A Capri (no idea what that is) and a Karneval Cocktail. Deciding to be brave we asked for the Karneval Cocktail and found it to be half berry juice and half tequila...very strong! It was pretty good anyway. We walked around a little bit more and we were pretty used to shouting and singing but then two German boys started yelling at us. As we don't speak German, we ignored them and so they felt the need to run up to us and continue talking in fast German while waving their arms in excitement. It seems as if the one guy had started his drinking binge quite early as the blank expressions on our faces didn't seem to phase him. Steph told him we spoke English and he gave her a three second blank stare and then asked (in perfect English) "Yes but are you from England?" Steph responded with Canada and he shook his head and said: "Canada, that's some f***ing crazy s***". We laughed and laughed as he ran past us and jumped air. It seems that in Karneval, lots of people get together and yell, sing, and dance and as Steph and I are two non-German and non-German speaking frauds that we should go home. If we spoke the language, it probably would have much more fun for us but it was still quite the experience anyway. As we waited at the bus stop, an old German came over and sat beside us. He began speaking to us in German, which I proudly responded with "Sprechen Sie Englisch? Ich spreche nicht viel Deutsch". This to him must have sounded like "I speak Spanish" and so he spoke in a mix of German and Spanish which was even more confusing. I pointed this error out to him but he was probably too drunk to realize as he refused to speak any English. From the little bits of German we know, Steph and I took turns responding to his odd questions. I was very proud of us for our German. Once we got home, Steph decided to start mucking around on the television and got it to work. We've been watching the parade we watched yesterday for the last half hour. Maybe we can get the tv in our bedroon to work as well...