there is hope for humankind

sunday feb 19: so i miracously woke up in the morning before my 8 am alarm and found everyone from the night before sprawled over various pieces of furniture in the living room. i quickly got up to go to my phone to turn off the alarm because i didnt want that to wake everyone up, but my moving and shifting woke up one of the girls. so i got ready to leave and so did she. right before i left i told her i was sorry for waking her and she said it was no problem because she wanted to leave early anyway. i doubt it was THAT early though! so i snuck into svens room to get the key to the terrace to get lance but i woke him up and he again didnt look too thrilled about that! but i was able to get lance and then head into the center of cologne again. so i went to one of the art galleries, the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, and i was actually 5 minutes early for the opening! it is one of the main art museums in cologne, and one of the only open ones during karnival. the cathedral was again open from 6-9 am so i missed that. so yeah anyway i got to the museum early but the front door was already open so i stepped inside but the person at the desk said they were closed, but i asked if i could wait inside since it was freezing out! and he said yes =) so when it officially opened i went in, they had a special exhibition on german cartoon/comic like art, but of course no captions in english so i had to miss that. the museum has art from medieval times to the 20th century. i saw the modern stuff first to get it over with. it was a lot of glass and tiles and stuff in a narrow corridor. so i then made my way through the rooms, the medieval stuff was very old, some 14th century wood sculptures of religious scenes and saints and of course mary and baby JC. when i made my way to the second floor (there werent a lot of people in this museum the whole time by the way), i went looking around and then when i was near the window i saw a parade marching down the street, going right next to the museum. i watched from up top for a bit, i didnt feel compulsed to go join in on the festivities because i was going to the main parade the following day. still, it did look like a lot of fun. so as i continued to go around, the security guard, who clearly was very bored, came over to me to explain one of the paintings. it was a 13 set series telling the life story of saint ursula (there was a big wood carving of her downstairs with the virgins she took with her on her voyage, from like the 15th cent or whaterver). im quite glad he did explain it, each one individually, because the text panel next to it didnt give enough detail (in english anyway). then he asked where i was from, so i told him. and he said he had family there and he has visited a few times before. he had quite a strange accent because he was not a native german, but clearly learnt english in germany. he was from like cambodia or somewhere in that area of asia so when he spoke english it came out as a mix of asian/german lol. then we got talking about other paintings and i forgot why, but he took me to one of the other paintings, a real famous one, i already saw in the previous room. it was a nice religious painting, about ibraham or something. i cant really remember what he was telling me about it, other than there  is a second half to it, which the museum doesnt have. there was a computer screen on a bench in the middle of the room which explained that, but it was only in german =( so i was glad that he told me. so then i continued around the gallery until it was closing time. i then went back to svens and we cleaned up and then had dinner together. michael was not so friendly with me anymore, clearly annoyed at my rejection the previous night. so when sven and i were doing the dishes after dinner, i was unloading the dishwasher to put the new batch in, when i dropped a tall guiness glass on the floor and it shattered. i felt extremely bad about this and cleaned it up and kept saying i was sorry and sven said "oh we spent all night trying to steal that glass!" and i said "well dont make me feel even more bad about it!" and he explained that him and daniel and michael were out at a pub one night and they were determined to steal the glass and they eventually did, so it was more the memory of the fun they had that night that was attached to the glass than the actual loss of the glass, that he was concerned about. so i told him i would steal him a guiness glass this night and he can pretend that was the same glass. he said that not a lot of cologne bars/pubs sell guiness so i wouldnt be able to find one, but i said i would make sure i did. so we decided we were going to do our own thing that night, he hangs out with his friends, and i go out with mine. carmen had left in the morning so she wasnt coming out that night but at least i was going to see jorien again! so a little later on i ended up taking the train into some part of cologne and meeting them at some bar. when i got out of the station i had no clue where to go, so i asked some guy on the corner but he didnt speak english very well. he was asian so im not sure if he was a tourist as well or a german immigrant but either way it was pulling teeth to ask him where this bar was. after like 5 minutes of getting nowhere, i saw mayke, floor and crew across the street so they started frantically waving but then crossed over to me so i told the guy that i didnt need directions anymore because i found my friends! im sure he got the message. so we went to this german pub and they played more horrific german/karneval music. but the atmosphere was fun, although it was very crowded and i was getting squashed. it was just more chill than your average club. i liked it a lot more than the previous night! and there was no one smoking. so it was good to catch up with jorien and see everyone again. some of them changed their costumes, stefan was a scottish highlander, chris was some builder guy/construction worker, floor was a dutch girl, lotte was like a 20s flapper type lady, jorien was a king?? she wore a crown and red faux fur coat with white trimming, and mayke was the flight attendant again even though she had bought 2 costumes, she couldnt fit the other one in her bag!! so everyone kept buying rounds of beer, but everytime i asked for water =) i reallly appreciated that none of them ONCE tried to pressure me into ordering an alcoholic drink. they asked what i wanted and i said water and then for the rest of the night, they got me water =) i did ask though for a guiness and chris said they wouldnt have it there but he asked anyway and he was right. i thought oh no, sven was right =(  so we had more crazy antics going on, stefan said he kissed a guy once so i tried to get him and chris to kiss but chris said he didnt do random hook ups, so that was a bummer for me! after a while of dancing and jumping around to the fantastic soundtrack, we went to another place. but not before going to a late night take out shop, i was hungry but not very tempted by the food, my god did we take a while in there though! so this other bar was more of your typical bar. this neighborhood of cologne was apparently really good for nightlife but it actually wasnt jam packed with lines out the door and outrageous entrance fees. so we got in right away and went directly to the back where the dance floor was. it was sooo full of people that there was a lot of bumping and rubbing against me. within 5 minutes of arriving, i realized i lost my purse. i kept my composure but inside i was freaking out! my phone, camera, debit card, passport, cash and svens key was inside! if i lost that i would totally be screwed!! so i told my friends and mayke and floor immediately started calling my phone over and over. i went and retraced my steps from when i entered the door. when i got to the dance floor, a guy sitting in the corner saw me looking around on the floor and said "what are you looking for?" and i said "my purse!" and he said "what does it look like" and i said "its small and black" and then he handed it to me! i said "omg you are a lifesaver!!" and he said "no, he found it" and pointed to the guy in front of him. so I went and kissed that guy - just on the cheek ;) and i checked inside and everything was in there, including the cash. my faith in the people that frequent the club scene was restored. so i then went back to the gang and told them i got everything and they said i was so lucky. so the partying resumed! we continued dancing away, the music was a bit more varied. people smoking inside again though =( i again tried to order a guiness at the bar but the bartender said the only beer they sold was the cologne brew. i thought omg this is impossible!! so i gave up and didnt end up replacing the glass lol. we were having fun, stefan was taking provocative photos by hiking up his kilt. so after a little while, i was eyeballing a guy in a ghostbusters costume that had outrageously horrible dance moves. i was thinking to myself "he looks like kevin james" and literally a split second later mayke said to me "that guy looks like the guy from hitch!" and i said "i was just thinking the same thing!" so i went up to him and told him. he was not impressed! he said "are you calling me fat?" and i said "noooo [but thinking, well you do have a bit of a belly!], its a complement, kevin james is funny!" and he said "but youre saying i need to lose weight". but mayke and i were denying we made any implementations. so then we got chatting with him and his friend, who was also in a ghostbuster costume. they were both german, but kevin james guy didnt know english as well as his friend. either way, i managed to find out that he was from heidelberg and so i told him i was going to be there around march 9th and so we traded numbers and said maybe we would meet up while i was there. so the night went on, chris ended up bumping into a friend of his who was this real sweet gay guy, with a possible latin background. so we hung out with him for the rest of the night, but he kept buying everyone shots, including me! i kept saying no but i took them anyway. i got a bit tipsy real quick. when it got towards the end of the night and the place started clearing out, people were leaving their costume pieces behind. i found a black covering for a shoe in the shape of a boot, like that puss in boots would wear. mayke and i were playing with it and i suggested in my not so sober state of mind that we keep it as our friendship boot and whenever we see each other we pass back and forth the boot and call it "the sisterhood of the traveling boot". mayke was not so much for this idea so we left it at the bar! we then left a little bit later, although chris stayed with his friend. so mayke and lotte ended up walking me to the train station and taking me down into the actual underground and mayke asked someone on one of the platforms if i was headed in the right direction. then they asked if i wanted them to wait with me until the train came but i said i was fine and i knew what i was doing and where i was going so they didnt need to worry. but mayke wasnt convinced (i still wasnt completely sober at this time but i did really know where to get off etc) so she asked this guy (in german) sitting next to me on a bench waiting for the train if he can make sure i got off at the right stop. he said ok. i then told her if she could ask him to share his pizza with me because i was hungry! she didnt. i asked in english. he didnt understand. i went hungry. so i told mayke i would call her tomorrow to figure out a place where to meet for the parade, and then they left. pizza eater didnt exactly do a good job of "looking after me" but whatever, i didnt need a babysitter anyway. so i arrived at svens without incident although i did kind of forget where to turn to get to his house, but i found it. it was like 3 am again and i went to bed right way on yet a different couch.
monday feb 20: so another early wake up, but not 8 am early. i didnt end up doing any exploring, or the self guided walking tours that i paid 50c for!! it just warrants another visit to cologne then =) so after breakfast sven said he wasnt going to the parade because hes been there several times before, he explained i was going to get a lot of camela, which i understood was candy but not exactly sure what kind though. so i left in the late morning and found myelf a cozy spoke somewhere along the parade route, which was along the pedestrian area that i walked around the first day i arrived. so i of course went in my costume. it was still a while before the parade started though, so in the meantime i was texting mayke to try and describe where i was to so everyone could meet me. but it became clear that that was unfeasible because of the large crowds of people and the rows of people behind me! so we called it off and decided to just meet up later. so the parade finally started, there were lots of fantastic floats with people in costumes and bands on them. they then threw LOTS of candy and chocolate at us, while we all screamed camela!! there were kids scrambling in between everyones legs picking up all the remainders on the floor and bagging them, but seriously every float threw tons of candy at us, there was PLENTY to go around for everyone. i couldnt believe how much free chocolate i was getting, it was like halloween in the winter, without the effort of going to peoples houses! i thought, hm if i knew i was going to get so much i 1) wouldnt have gone crazy on sat looking for german chocolate and 2) should have brought a pillow case! i should probably mention that a few days prior, i had made plans with andy and sophie to spend tues and wed night with them in dusseldorf. but on this monday, they asked what i was doing and i mentioned the parade so they said they would come (i thought wow they are coming all the way from dusseldorf just for the parade! i later found out its only a 20 minute train ride lol). so while i was waiting for them i see a group of 5 guys behind me all dressed as mario characters - yoshi, wario, luigi, mario, and toad. they were trying to take a pic of themselves so i said i would do it and then asked if i could take one with my cam. so after that we got chatting and i ended up hanging out with them for the whole parade! they were really fun and knew english quite well. they were all around my age, with the youngest being like 19. i asked where peach was and one of them's gf was peach but she left early!! that would have been cool to see them all together. so as the parade is going on, they explained what some of the floats meant, because some had like paper machie figures on the front, like mardi gras, only they were like propaganda. like one said something (in german) about the US being bankrupt. so we continued to collect the camela which apparenlty meant candy and we screamed as loud as we could at every float "camela!!" and i truly felt in the karneval spirit then =) a bunch of the camela we got was fake money and yoshi told me that used to be the deutsche mark before the euro. the guy who was mario, nathan, put me on his shoulders for a little while and wow could i see so much more, especially the floats!! i also swapped to the yoshi  guys shoulder and he was taller so that was even better for me lol. i of course had to explain my costume to them but i think they liked it! nathan seemed to have a thing for me (go figure) but i was more interested in luigi, philipp. but either way i had a great time with them all. toad and i switched head gear. he made his toad hat himself, by covering a motorcycle helmet. it was really heavy!! he wore my devil ears for a while but i left my place in line to call andy to tell him where i was. i really couldnt describe much to him though. when he and sophie arrived he said it was sooo crowded and hard to move that they as well wouldnt bother meeting up with me until later. so i was alone with the super mario team lol. when i got back to where i was standing i found out that toad broke my horns lol. i thought oh damn, i was planning on selling those! but whatever. they even persuaded me to drink some of their beer which of course was awful, but there are some funny photos floating about of them dribbling it into my mouth! id say the wario guy was the only one who wasnt so drunk and rowdy, and ironically, he was from bavaria. but then again, im sure he gets wild for oktoberfest =) so after about 5 hours of parade madness, it was coming to a close and andy and sophie tried again to meet up with me. i put him on the phone with one of the guys who could give better directions that i could. andy and sophie showed up about 10 min later, him wearing a pink wig and and crazy big sunglasses and she wore big glasses and a big wig lol. but it wasnt before long that the last float passed and the parade ended! there was soo much crap on the floor but the sanitation workers were lightning quick to clean it up! so i then said goodbye to my new friends, got philipps email address to swap the pics and then i went with andy and sophie through the streets to the train station but it was a bad move because we kept running into the parade route!! so we had to wait after floats passed to dash inbetween them. what would normally be a 10 minute walk took us like 30 min but we finally made it to the train station. they told me i should just go with them but i said that i had all of my stuff at svens still so i needed to go back and i was just going to bike there. it was only 20 miles but it was getting late and i was getting nervous about what time i was going to arrive because i originally didnt plan on staying the whole time at the parade. but nonetheless, i still ended up meeting with mayke and everyone after i left andy and sophie. we met not far from the parade route, in a popular pedestrian square where there were so many people still. so it was just a quick goodbye, everyone was back in their costumes from friday. mayke said she was sad to see me go but i assured her our paths would cross again! so then i was a bit in a rush to head back to svens, so i got on the tram like trains which was the first time i was taking them so i was confused as to where to actually stand to get them. someone helped me out but i of course went in the wrong direction so i had to get off at the next stop and go on the other side. so this only delayed my trip even more. i finally did get back to svens, about 6:15 pm and i was so stressed. i quickly changed out of my outfit into normal clothes, gave sven half of the camela i collected (this broke my heart to give up so much chocolate but i had no more room in any of my bags!), told him to keep my succubus wings as a memento of our karneval 2012 together, and i packed the rest of my costume and then got lance outside and set up my bags. its 6:30 pm now and starting to get dark and i hadnt even left yet! i get my tail light out and of course it doesnt work. i changed the batteries quickly, but it still didnt work. sven was like "what are you going to do?" and i said ill just have to continue on my way. so another quick goodbye, i thanked him for having me, he said it was a pleasure, and then i invited him to ny and he said he would take me up on the offer one day. and with that, off i went!! so luckily the route wasnt too difficult where i had to keep stopping and checking the map, because that really puts time on the clock. just followed  the b9 for a lot of the way. and luckily it was flat. as the night went on the streets had hardly any traffic at all, but i still stuck to the sidewalk as much as possible, which had no people. it was lit too but not too bright either. i was pretty panicky the whole time because i was afraid i was going to arrive at 9:30 and I wanted to spend time with andy and sophie. ok enough for this post, another long one coming soon =)