Kurze Straße in Düsseldorf

Germans will often tell you that they live in a boring country – even while you’re sat there having a great time in it. They just can’t help themselves; they love complaining. Then again, if there’s one thing Germans like more than complaining, it’s solving the problem they’re complaining about. This is why citizens of the Federal Republic are, in terms of percentage of time spent abroad measured against the whole population, the most travelled nation on earth.

What Germans tend to forget, however, is just how exciting Germany actually is. Sure, its provincial cities often look boring – you won’t find any showy Barcelona-style Gaudi architecture in Düsseldorf, no Coliseum in Cologne – but it is precisely this slightly dull facade that does the trick.

After all, excitement is all about the unexpected. And there can be very few things more surprising than walking out onto the grey streets of wintry Düsseldorf one February morning to find gaggles of scantily-cald and/or costumed women accosting businessmen and cutting off their ties. As a newcomer, you wonder what the hell is going on; you take look at the calendar and wonder whether you took that whole hibernation thing a bit too seriously and it’s already the 1st April.

Karneval kraziness!

Of course, that isn’t the case. What’s happened is that you’re experiencing the first day of Karneval, the traditionally catholic celebrations in the lead up to Lent; in Mediterranean countries, it’s generally known under the epithet of mardi gras or “fat Tuesday”, because that is the last day on which feasting is allowed (the word Carnival comes from the Latin for “goodbye meat”). The beginning of Lent is incidentally, also the origin of Pancake Day in the English speaking world, also held on a Tuesday.

Karneval in Germany is somewhat different, however, with the main focus being far more on drinking beer than on eating sweet and starchy foods (although there is some of that too). Furthermore, the main day is the Monday of Lenten week, known as Rosenmontag or Rose Monday. It is marked by midday processions through the main Catholic cities of Germany, especially those on the Rhine, and then by serious and dedicated alcohol consumption.

Hot on the heels of said alcohol consumption follows licentiousness. There are rumours, for example, (which the German national statistics office neither confirms nor denies) that the birth rate in Cologne records a yearly blip nine months after Carnival. That wouldn’t surprise me: it’s an obvious, if often underestimated fact that when people are dressed up in weird costumes and few beers worse for wear, they do stuff they wouldn’t usually do.

Well, I know I certainly do. The first year round, Carneval caught me unawares and I wasn’t dressed up. I was living in the Rhineland at the time and, after looking on bemusedly and losing a couple of ties to marauding bands of Sekt-swilling women, kind of decided to stay home for a couple of days. Excitement is all very well and good, but I like and value my ties.

Thanks to Super Mario (aka Hauke Klevinghaus) for all photos - and a lot of Carnival antics!

In the years following, however, I’ve always been sure to return to the Rhineland (I now live in Hamburg, you see) and to return in fancy dress. Then you can really get involved and blame everything on your alter ego. This year, for example, it is Duffman from the Simpsons who has been drinking more beer than is good for him and kissing girls dressed up as nurses. Not me: oh no.

The Germans, precise as they are, have a word to describe this phenomenon, of course: Jeck, which has the very specific meaning of “recklessly, usually drunk, disguised Carnival reveller”. To admit to doing something in the spirit of Jeck is essentially the equivalent of pleading temporary insanity or incapacity: it’s a great – and commonly accepted – excuse, although it only works during Carnival week, so don’t go getting any ideas about using it in mid-July if you “accidentally” kiss your best friend’s girl or something of that nature.

That’s the point, you see: excitement and wildness comes and goes in Germany with the calendar. It’s planned excitement, if you will, that Germans can write into their diaries and get prepared for: like fireworks at New Years, where all of Germany suddenly spends a small fortune on dangerously low-quality bottle-rockets.

You can see how Germans might consider themselves and their country boring after a few years; after all, always knowing in advance when things are going to go wild could end up killing the excitement. But for those of us not born here, it’s all fresh and new, and usually unexpected.