My trip back home

As you guys know, I travelled home for a few days, mainly to participate in the greatest event on the globe (u sure know I am talkin' 'bout the Basler Fasnacht (carnival) here). After 4.5 hours delay in NY JFK due to a very lengthy and problematic deicing procedure which made me miss my connection flight and 2 hours delay in Paris because the bus drivers preferred to go on strike instead of driving poor me (and a few other guys like the funny German guy who kept cursing "Ei am teeekin sis bas nau!") to the already ready plane, I finally arrived in the beautiful megacity of Basel on Friday 3rd.

After a weekend of meeting some decent people and recognizing my favourite bar had made its Sam Adams even more expensive than before (probably taking advantage of my absence) carnival was about to begin - here a picture taken during the so called "Ladäärnenyypfyffe", an event where we make some music to honour or beautiful "lamps" which we'll (well, it's actually some guys we hire...) carry around during carnival. I'm just reading a funny text someone gave me to publish in our club magazine. And the guy with glasses and cap on the right is Fred, an American who lives in Florida and has been flying in not only to participate in the last few carnivals but also sometimes when we have stuff like a carnival meeting or the general assembly during the year. He also invited me to visit him and his famous crab cakes in Flordia, but I guess I'll be doing different stuff when I get to Miami. As a compromise I had to promise the try NC barbecue.

Carnival then began Monday morning 4am and would last for 72 hours. The beginning is the so called "Morgestraich" where all (or at least most of them...) lights in the city are "turned down very low - as low as its gets" and once the clock strikes 4, all carnival clubs start playing their flutes, hitting their drums, and walking around with lights/lamps. My club has its special form by walking around with helmets which look like bedside lamps - here a picture which was published in a Zurich (booooo) newspaper (I'm somewhere in there having a great time ;-) ):
The special thing this year was that we had heavy snow falls in the days before the event, so it was often not too easy to walk around on the slippery ground. After the Morgestraich people normally go home once the sun comes out but tough guys like me and my crowd normally stay around, drink some more (decent! - no Bud/Bush light!) beer and only quickly head home to get some food and a shower. In the afternoon the "parade" takes place where every group presents its "topic of the year". We were staging some sort of parody on the bird's flu by acting as a group of chicken and vultures who were afraid of the highly infectuous human beings. Therefore we handed out stickers to the crowd saying stuff like "still in health" or "to be disposed" - which we then did by putting some sort of net on them via a "christmas tree packaging machine". We also had some guys in a sort of "human being suit" which we carried around in a cage on wheels. Some of them regularly "escaped" and were then brought to our "oven" before experiencing a miraculous rebirth - just to be captured over and over again. Check out the pictures - I'm pretty sure you can figure out who's who by yourself, otherwise I'd be highly offended: My carnival club's website. After that's over in the afternoon, you're just walking around (and we finally started playing). And as it's a long day (not to speak of my jetlag) people are normally highly motivated and energized when having dinner for hours in a warm and cozy environment - see us having a blast, one guy is obviously even drinking an iced tea and one a coke!!!

Well, enough of the details. To sum it up, it was a highly strange experience as I did not really have time to acclimate and was somewhat thrown from a rather superficial society (no offense!) into the very subtle Basel carnival. If you still do not have an idea of what I am talking about and what makes this event so special, this only means you gotta visit me here soon. On a sidenote, people want me to replace some guys in the "Sujetkommission", which is the group of people that defines our "topic" and the whole "parade formation" from lamps to costumes, flyers etc. I was especially honoured when another candidate let them know he'd only join if I did - he was pretty surprised when I told him this meant he was in as I had already gladly accepted.

Last Friday I already had the chance to get used to the American way of life again (after all the terribly healthy food I'm getting here - I'm missing Dillo's, McDo's etc.!) when someone I do not even know was having a farewell party at the terribly primitive (and cheap - gotta love it for that, although there are no 25c beers) "Fame" club and felt like going to Canada meant having people wear cowboy costumes. Hm. Well I did not really bring cowboy stuff but some friends later on brought me from the "public" part into the "private pimp my cowboy section" of the club - and then, in a bad coalition with Absinth and Vodka in various variations, made me wear this stuff. Just do not let the guys at the border know about that, otherwise they probably won't let me in. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN FOLKS!!!


So, now I'm very much looking forward to coming back again (though I could very well live without the annoying trip itself) and seeing all of you guys. I know most of you are travelling around somewhere (and not seeing those for quite some time anyway), so I'll mainly have time to watch the beginning of our upcoming NCAA run (go for Final Four ACC Champions!!!), go to the gym, do my pre-assignments and wait for your hopefully very funny Miami stories in preparation of my upcoming trip. Let's go Duke.

I'm BTW really about to bring my video camera, so be prepared to answer stupid question like "what's the most annoying thing about the Big Easy"?