The Place Where People Smell Good

This week I got to take part in 2 European Carnival celebrations!

Yesterday I went to COLOGNE, GERMANY!!! (where apparently people smell very good. haha, cologne. It's a bad joke). My first time in Germany was in some ways very shocking. 2 hours away from Brussels, and there's a whole different language and culture!? SO confusing. I'm just getting the hang of French and suddenly I'm faced with words like Ashflenlaghenbacken and Burkdushaftendugen. Well I made those up. But that's what German looks like! Literally the only word I know in German is gesundheit (and I just had to look-up how to spell it). Luckily communication was still generally feasible. And there was the occasional person who spoke English. Always helpful.
Anyway, getting past the whole language shock, Cologne was very beautiful. By far the best site there was the ENORMOUS Cathedral. It's by far my favorite church I've seen here, simply because it is SO MASSIVE! I walked in and had my mouth hanging open for a full five minutes completely in awe of everything. The architecture was unbelievable (see the picture I've included with this post). Cologne was also full of people dressed up for Carnival. We got on the metro and the first people we saw were a couple completely decked out in costume and wearing gigantic beehive wigs. There were also a lot of people out celebrating in the central square of Cologne. I think my favorite costumes were two men dressed up as Ghostbusters. The other highlight of Cologne, Germany? I spotted 2 Starbucks, 2 Dunkin Donuts, and a Burger King. They don't have any of those in Brussels!! I was in heaven.

I also went to Binche, Belgium on Sunday, which is about an hour outside of Brussels. The main attraction was a parade with kids from the age of probably 4 all the way through adults all dressed up in some of the most intricate and gorgeous costumes I've ever seen! They were all parading down the street and dancing accompanied by drums and trumpets. Some of my favorite costumes: 3 kids dressed up like grapes and a group of men dressed as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. It was really like a glorified Halloween. And there was confetti EVERYWHERE (As displayed by the picture of me covered in it after the Binche parade).

All in all I was SO excited to be a part of all the pre-Lenten festivities. I wanted to go to Ash Wednesday mass today, but I mixed up the times for mass. There are Catholic Churches EVERYWHERE in Belgium, but I have yet to go to mass. My new goal for myself in Europe: go to church. haha. I will also be heading to Amsterdam this weekend with my class, so keep an eye out for updates!