Call me crazy.... 'cause i am!

basel fasnacht! every year in february, basel and luzern hold fasnacht (carnival) which is similar to the carnival in venice. people wear masks, music is played and its meant to be a great event! so heres the deal. we went to sara's house for dinner and we stayed there until we had to get the 1.06am train to zurich and then the 2am (extra zug!!) directly into basel.

now i dont know about sara and lacey but i knew if i had no sleep before midnight i was going to be cranky so i went to bed at 8pm then woke up again at midnight. oh my goddddddd. it felt like a dream crawling out of bed slapping a mask of make up on and trekking through the pitch black dark to the train station. not only did it rain so by the time i got there i looked like a panda bear but there were so many other freaks out here doing the same thing. it was below freezing and literally the middle of the night and i was going to basel. what were we thinking???

by the time we arrived there i was grumpy and i was tired but i was excited to see what all the hoo haa was about. so we followed the thousands of people into the city centre and waited. we waited and then we waited some more. herds of people were lining the street, im telling you it was like we were going to watch an olympic marathon. ...... and then even though it was pitch black dark they turned off all the lights and power at 4am. it was starting!

now i was expecting fireworks, some cool music, something a bit fancy!!!!

no. it was a gazillion people with weird-ass costumes on blowing into wannabe flutes and smashing onto drums like there life depended on it. forever. it didnt stop. it was like minus 50 degrees, there were people bashing into us like they wanted to mow us down and there was this music (if you could call it that) blaring full volume before the sun had even come up. people were taking photos, cheering, getting all excited and all i could think of was "this is not real" before passing out from exhaustion we found a shop that was open and selling fasnacht foods. flour suppe (that looked like mud) and kasewahe (cheese keish) which was pretty good for some sort of dinner slash breakfast at stupid o'clock. we hugged the chairs for a while and then we ventured out again hoping to find some sort of excitement in the still dark streets.

nope there was none so we went home. i didnt care by that stage. we were cold, tired and disappointed at fasnacht and bed seemed like a way better deal at 6am. so we arrived back at sara's at about 9.ish got under the covers and slept until about 1pm.

i am never trying to be cultural again. i feel like i have jetlag now but i dont have an amazing trip to show for it. OH WELL i think i am just being a whiner because now my body clock is messed up but a warning to all readers - DONT GO TO FASNACHT IN BASEL IF YOU LIKE YOUR BED!!