Carnival

After about a month since Block D began ( At TU/e the school year has two terms with 3 blocks each (A,B,C - Term 1 and D,E,F - Term 2), the school closes for about a week for Carnival. Not knowing much about the whole thing, a random bunch of us went to the station center to see what the whole deal was about.







Tradition has it that the Christians celebrate for the last time before they begin their fasting period. Celebrated mostly in the south of Netherlands, the Carnival has of course taken up a more modern and fun filled version. So, basically beginning from Friday to Thursday (into the carnival week, but mostly during the weekend), people dress up in all sorts of costumes and go about the city center.There is a normally a parade which is more of a family business. Literally EVERYBODY dresses up in one costume or the other and goes to see the parade. Beer is sold in plenty and people basically have a good time. We watched the parade too and we acted like typical kids when the people from the floats threw candies at us. :)

We then ate something called the Oliebollen, a Dutch delicacy, made of balls of fried dough spattered with sugar powder.



It was hot and yummy..:D..then we being we, we went to a costume shop, tried out some of them and took pictures and came out!! :D...People go to other cities during carnival to watch a bigger and better parade like in Amsterdam or in Maastricht. The adults of course have a different kind of celebration. They still have their costumes, but they go bar trekking all over the weekend. So they basically form a big group and go from bar to bar and get crazy drunk...One of my friends actually said that they went as a group of about 130 poeple!! At the end of the night there were totally random people in their group whom nobody actually knew!! haha..

It was a good day for me too. I got invited by a Polish guy I met (my friend's roommate) to some kind of international students' dinner. I did go there! it was actually cool...:)

Next year perhaps I will get an actual costume!!