Narrenzunft

I am not used to the Carnival- mostly probably because it is originally a Catholic tradition and I have not grown up in a Catholic country... of course I have heard and read about the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro or seen pictures from many of my friends attending the Carnival of Venice but that Carnival is so big in Austria and Germany I didn't know before I lived in Dornbirn. Actually, I am still not so into it. I don't know what happens and when and what is the history behind.

But anyway, Fra and I went to Lindau on Sunday- because it rained in Dornbirn and then it never rains in Lindau (the clouds get squeezed by the Dornbirn-mountains, but the area before Bodensee usually then always have good weather...) and we wanted to go there also a it for "old times sake".

We had lunch and we started to notice weirdly dressed people starting to gather up... we went to see what was happening.

Soon we were in the middle of the carnival people and we stayed there to watch.

There are some rules. All groups have own chants. If you know the chant you may get schnaps (a shot of alcohol) or candy and if you do not know the chants something bad happens to you. What you get as a prize or what you get as a punishment differs from group to group and city to city.

For example a chant was so that the carnival group yelled "hopla!" and you have to yell back "hoo!" and I know one of the Dornbirn-area chants sounds like mascara mascara, roll-on, roll-on but it is probably something different :)

Fra knew one chant (listening to the people around) and he got a schnaps but I didn't so I got a punishment! My punsihment was that a scary looking creature stole my hair band and fastened it in a piece of wood with a lot of other hair bands!

So I am not so sure I like Carnival still either :) :)