How I came to hate Karneval

So, this weekend I went to Köln for Karneval. I am now of the opinion I should have just given it a miss. Right before we left, me and Glen had literally no Bock auf Karneval (couldn't be bovvered). And there was a train strike. The world was encouraging us to stay in Bochum and do nothing all weekend. But I insisted that despite how little we felt like it, that we should go and we'd regret it if we stayed at home. So we got dressed up, begrudgingly pre-drank a bit on the way to Heidi's, and forced ourselves to go out and have 'fun'.

The first night, I lost my bag- contents: wallet (every bank card, discount card and student card I own, English and German, and also 40 euros, £10 and my English simcard, cos I'd left it in there after my brief trip to the UK), phone (cute little pink touchscreen- I had recently upgraded), purple camera (I like all my electronics to match), keys, expensive concealer, and half a pack of marlboro menthols (no real loss obviously, seeing as I don't smoke anymore as of...er...a few hours ago). I really don't know how this happened, or more to the point, how I didn't even notice my bag was gone until the next morning. Cue realisation that I am literally the thickest person alive. This put a bit of a downer on my weekend.

That aside, Karneval reminded me of New Years Eve, in that there is so much pressure to have fun, that it's actually quite stressful, too busy and quite difficult to have fun.

Given the chance again, I would not go to Köln for Friday (AKA drunken bag-losing day of doom), and I wouldn't bother with the Monday either. Geisterzug on Saturday was pretty awesome; slightly Halloween-themed costumes and partying in a tunnel are a good combination. But that aside, I feel like I failed at Karneval. Never mind.

This whole experience has made me appreciate that really, money and cards and random electronics are not that important. I've saved most of the damage within a couple of days, and I didn't lose my passport, which means I can still get money from the bank and can still go to Berlin at the weekend. There are much worse things that could have happened. I could have lost all my clothes. Now that would actually ruin my life. So, positives of the weekend? I got to spend it with these people.

And Max (not pictured, but I swear he exists)

And I got to dress up as a fairy. Or rather, I got to dress up as an exaggerated version of myself, with multi-coloured wings. The rest of my outfit I would happily wear on an average day in England, perhaps with slightly less pink eyeshadow.

Dora.
xxx