Mehlem Madness

Happy Karneval, everyone!!! For those who don’t know, Karneval fis a huge holiday in this region of Germany. It starts on November 11th and ends in early March. It’s a crazy season of drinking, parties, and parades. These last few weekends of April are when Karneval kicks it up a notch. You can see people in brightly colored costumes everywhere; clowns and Marvel characters are a favorite. Each region has a local parade, where tractors drive barges through the streets and kids line up shouting for candy. Last weekend (2/22) was the parade in Mehlem. Two of my friends lived in that area, so I decided to pay them a visit and see the festivities.

There are plenty of costumes to buy in stores, princes and princesses, police officers, clowns, Marvel characters, you name it, but most were rather expensive, so I threw on my most colorful outfit and picked out a hat from my host family.

I took a tram to Bad Godesburg to catch the connecting bus to Mehlem. I felt ridiculous in costume, but luckily, I was far from the only one dressing up. I got on the bus, faced down the mighty German Stare from Frosty the Snowman, failed a dialogue check to help a lady off the bus, and then realized I had a serious logistical issue with my plan. Since the parade was down the main street in Mehlem, the bus had to take a detour down the highway to avoid it. So every stop within a mile of the parade was closed. On top of that, the screen on the bus was so full of Windows popup errors that I could barely see what stop was next, let alone what stop I wanted. At some point, the bus driver started speaking German to us, and I seized this opportunity to get off. I thought I had made a huge mistake, as no one got off with me, but after looking back, I saw a great wave of costumed people beginning their pilgrimage to the Parade. I felt like a scene from Life of Brian as a long line of costumed parade attendees followed me. 

After a short 20-minute walk, which Germans would barely call a walk (I once went on a short walk with my host mother that became a 3-hour trek across a lake to a monastery. This walk involved slipping on ice, climbing over fallen logs, and hopping not one but two barbed wire fences, but that is a story for another time. Let me know in the comments if you’d want to hear it!)

After leading the line of clowns, Marvel superheroes, and two Frosty the Snowman’s (snowmen?) I met my friends at the parade. The parade consisted of themed wagons towed by tractors throwing candy onto the screaming crowd. My first experience was back-to-back pirate ships blasting sea shanty club remixes at full volume. The music was loud and full of accordians. Each wagon was staffed by people in costumes. Half of them were drunk, having the time of their lives, and the other half looked miserable. Just the German way, I suppose. 

Thousands of people stood on the sidewalks as the wagons passed shouting “Kamelle” (the German word for sweets). The people on the floats would then throw handfuls of candy into the crowd. We knew about this going in, but their definition of sweets was a bit different from what we expected. Throughout the parade, we received gummy bears, gummy worms, a sponge gummy cola, chocolate, cookies, a phone case, three screen protectors, wet wipes, and a packet of tissues. And some of this candy, being thrown from high up, would hurt on the way down. More than once, I had to duck and take cover as heavy chocolates rained down. The wagons would make two or three loops. Each time, stocking up on new candy and sponges to hand out.

Afterwards, we went back to my friend’s host family. We met a cute cat, got some much-needed water, and divided up the spoils. Getting out of Mehlem was somehow worse than getting there. The locals seemed to know just as much as we did. After ruling out every stop within 15 minutes of the parade, I finally saw a familiar face: the same Frosty the Snowman that stared me down on the bus. We then followed him all the way to the same stop we got off at, crossed the street, and caught the next bus to Bad Godesburg.

Overall, the music was good, and the kolsche was even better. 10/10 would go again.

More readings on Karneval: Ultimate Guide to Germany’s Best Festival: Carnival in Cologne

7 German strongholds for carnival celebrations

Ian signing off.