A Georgia Girl in Germany

We went to the Esslingen Fasching Parade last month with some friends. It was raining when we left, but it had stopped by the time we found a place to park and walked to the downtown area. The parade was due to start around 1 p.m., so we grabbed a couple crepes for lunch before searching out a spot along the parade route. We camped out near the end of the parade route, so we didn’t start seeing the festivities until closer to 2 p.m.

No matter what it's called,Fasching, Carnival or Mardi-Gras, many cultures throughout the world celebrate the pre-Lenten season with elaborate celebrations and revelry. In Germany, it’s also called the “fifth season of the year,” and begins on Nov. 11 at 11:11 a.m. The Carnival spirit is then temporarily suspended by the Christmas season, and picks up again intensely in the New Year. I’ve heard that it is intended either as one last fling before the fasting and austerity of Lent or just to scare away the evil spirits of winter.

The fasching parade was full of color, witty ideas and fun costumes, with most people in the parade passing out candy and throwing confetti (and in one case distributing cups of wine!). There were about 140 groups in the parade, but we only stayed to see just over half of them

The elaborate masks are designed to scare off the evil spirits, and the “vexes” are very interactive with the onlookers. The vexe above picked his nose for us, then helped pick Benjamin’s nose! The costumes run the gamut from ghost-themed, to woodland creatures, to animals and witches.


They also are known to “kidnap” spectators, as this pirate-dressed girl below discovered. Yes, even onlookers dress up for the festivities. The photo further below shows a group of vexes with a wagon in which to carry away onlookers...while they steal their shoelaces. I made sure the kids’ laces were double-knotted, just in case (none of us were snatched away), especially after I saw one lady walking back to her spot along the parade route without laces in her sneakers!

After a while, with all the unexpected behavior of the vexes marching by, Benjamin decided it was much safer to watch the parade from behind my legs. He’d peer out when the vexes were further away, but quickly retreated when they came close again.

Even some of the bands wore complete costumes and masks. Others elaborately painted their faces, much like Mardi-Gras masks I’ve seen in the states.

We even saw a few vexes pushing baby vexes in strollers. Kids definitely get started young, as is evident with this junior witch sweeping away the evil spirits.

Got milk? I didn’t see any other cow costumes, but thought this one was interesting. Not sure how well a cow would scare off evil spirits though.


The vexes picked on us several times. This one didn’t like Bob’s chicken hat and went after it with oversized wooden scissors.

MacKenzie had at least three vexes try to make off with her bag of candy. This one was the most persistent. One actually managed to take Emma’s bag but we quickly got it back for her.

We got a couple oversized pretzels to share…Benjamin definitely liked that they were chocolate-covered! It was the perfect treat for an afternoon snack.

One of the vexes even got me...he came up to me, shook my hand, then quickly wrapped his arm around me and dumped confetti in my hair and down my jacket.
MacKenzie and Emma decided to gather as much of the confetti as they could. There certainly was a lot to scoop up!

Zachary wasn’t as thrilled with the confetti that coated him. But, we all enjoyed our fun-filled day of great food, spirits and entertainment, where the witches, goblins and fools came out to play. It was definitely interesting!

Labels: Benjamin, Germany, MacKenzie, Travel, Zachary