carnaval!!

i've been back in canada for a while. but with martijn jetting off to argentina soon and starting his blog, i realized how sad i am that i didn't continue with mine. thankfully my mind remembers my experiences well and i can update them now since i know that in about twenty years my mental capabilities will have diminished...especially considering the events of this blog entry. CARNAVAL!!

carnaval is held immediately before lent. while there's a religious origin to the holiday, it is completely missed with all the activities. i spent most of my time in tilburg and one day in maastricht. the festivities are actually supposed to last for 3 days, but in the dutch world (along with the exchange world) it lasts for 5.

celebrations began at a house party in the center with numerous students, mentors and random people i'd never seen in my life. there were teenage mutant ninja turtles, lara croft, tennis players adn basically any other costume you can imagine. it's pretty much halloween on speed ;).

sunday was parade day. a huge group of exchange students (70+) went to maastricht which has one of the best reputations for its parade...which lasted for approximately 6 hours!! we spent our time watching the parade (with some of the weirdest and most confusing floats i've ever seen) and interspersing it with a beer. most of my time was spent with natasha, ellen and kirstin. it was a tad chilly and at one point we stood in the middle of the square creating random dances to keep ourselves warm. quite a bit of our time was also spent searching for hanna, who seemed to have gotten lost within the massive crowds of people. we eventually found her in mcdonalds. warm and happy as she had drank a bit of "cartoned" wine.

the next few days were in tilburg. natasha and i met up with martijn and his friends in bolle. so many random dutch songs!! martijn translated a few lyrics for me including "there's a horse in the hall" and something about not taking your dog to the chinese restaurant or he'll get eaten. we did create a wonderful dance with his friend joris. i'm trying to bring it over to canada but it's not catching on.

overall a wonderful festival. i can't wait to be back in holland to celebrate it again. with all the partying that you do day/night in that week, i'm suprised i still remember as much as i did.

NOTE: the blog date is the date of carnaval, not the actual written date