.jpg)
With snow falling almost the entire day we braved our way to Maastricht on Sunday to watch the Carnival parade. We saw 0 people dressed up as we marched our way to the Eindhoven station. I almost thought perhaps they had canceled the whole thing. Getting into the train leaving to Maastricht, we were all slightly relieved that our 'costume efforts' had not been a complete waste.
The entire train load that got off in Maastricht was probably walking towards the parade. I actually spotted some other friends and colleagues from Eindhoven. The whole city was in such festive mood. What I truly love about the carnival is that its not a festival for a category of people. Young and old, everybody is on the streets celebrating wearing some crazy costume. A lot of people do take it rather seriously and the dressing is elaborate. The city looked like an animation movie with all characters ever created running wild!
We were extremely cold in a few hour's time. As the snow fell continuously, my feet and hands went numb. The parade showed no signs of stopping so we decided to move on.
Interestingly, the names of the cities are changed for 3 days before the Ash Wednesday. The name given to Eindhoven is Lampegat which means a Lamp hole from Philips' association with Eindhoven. I found it rather funny actually to name a city Lamphole...:)
Picture Courtesy - Vinaya Sekar, Abhinav Rohit
Posts
