Carnival!

Maastricht is known for it's HUGE annual Carnival celebration.  If you don't know what Carnival is (don't worry, I didn't before I got here either), it's a big festive season that occur right before lent starts and is celebrated throughout the world!  In America, we just have Mardi Gras, which is significantly lamer.

Maastricht is a destination location for many during Carnival, and City Center is completely crowded with people in crazy costumes, many very drunk (at night when all the families leave, basically everyone is drunk), and everyone having a blast.

Carnival "officially" happens Sunday through Tuesday, which is when the entire town is shut down (except for the bars) and everyone just parties and people are out dressed their absolute craziest, but the celebrations, costumes, and fun really start on Friday night and don't end until Tuesday.

The town gets disgusting very quickly, trash all over the ground and tons of broken glasses and beer bottles everywhere you walk.  It's terrifyingly dangerous.

At night, walking down the streets with bars, you have to shove through and hold your friends hands tightly in hopes of getting wherever you are going safely together.  Usually we somehow get separated by the crowds no matter how hard we try, and one of the tall guys has to try to flag everyone back together before we do a headcount and move on.

I went out Friday and Sunday night, and it was a ton of fun to be a part of such crazy festivities!  Sunday was my friend Leigh's birthday, so we had her birthday dinner followed by a valentine's day celebration (hosted by my dear twin Kristen!) of relaxing with wine and chocolate before heading out for the night because we would all be in different places for Valentine's Day.  The first official evening of Carnival was a blast, celebrating, dancing, and going crazy with all my friends!


Sunday afternoon was the big parade, which was unlike any American parade I have ever been to.  It was pretty much just marching bands and people in crazy costumes drinking beer while they walked along.  The parade moved very slowly, with participants stopping regularly to refill their glasses with alcohol and paying no attention to those watching them, but their costumes were so insanely intricate, so we watched them anyways.

Note: All the pictures are of random people on Sunday afternoon.  I decided it was best not to take my camera out at night because it's just far too crazy, and I had a terrible spot for the parade so I didn't get any pictures of that, but I hope you can appreciate the insanity of this huge carnival celebration simply from people-watching on Sunday afternoon!

Happy Carnival!