Nuns, fair trade ‘cocaine’ and policewomen
Trying to come up a summary to describe the weekend is difficult. There were so many moments! We headed to Holland for the first time ever to celebrate Carnival and boy did we. My voice is slowly returning and if the flashbacks aren’t enough, there at least 3 digital camara’s worth of pics not forgetting the brother’s cam corder. Lord. I had the Friday off giving me enough time to panic about the flight. Even though its only 40 minutes. We got to Dusseldorf airport on time and from there it was fun and games as we tried to understand the German Public Transport system. Efficient doesn’t being to cover it. We got the train from the airport into the city and from there myself and the sister K went in search of tickets to Venlo where we could get the bus. Time flies when you are pottering around not really being aware of it. As it turns out, our train was the last one out of Dusseldorf that night. At 9.48 we are legging it up the stairs with the rest of the gang in tow and we literally got in the door, sat down the and train pulled out. When they say 9.48 they mean it. We got to Venlo for 11ish where everyone was in carnival mode already. Bizzare
costumes, balloons and lots of people singing. It was so cold in Venlo, we had to huddle to keep one of the group A warm. She’s a cold creature. We got home to Horst at around 12.15 and there were introductions, impressing the gang with the boyf showing off his big screen and putting on The Simpson’s Movie.
This was one way of ensuring I stayed in the kitchen catching up with the sister K. I HATE the simpsons. The mate A was very funny, at various stages over the weekend she would say “I’ve never”. It was to be a weekend of firsts. She’d never watched The Simpsons. She’d never really drank beer or had crisps. This all went out the window. Everyone eventually hit the sack and myself and K stayed up chatting until nearly 4.30. Yes we are good talkers. At one stage, she went outside to the garage to get a beer and it was pelting snow. It was really impressive, proper snow not like the 3 flakes we get here. Saturday was to be the big day, there was an Ireland rugby game followed by costumes and music and dancing. A muted win by Ireland, an excellent win by Scotland and we were in party mode. On with the costumes, up with the music and we were in full carnival mode. The nuns costumes were quite good and the brother had the easiest one of all. He had a black shirt, black trousers and a white collar which came with
the shirt. Little or no effort. The sister had her Charleston outfit and it looked cool. The boyf was unsure what he wanted to wear, and as the beers had been flowing during the ruggers, he settled for the extra nuns outfit. He fitted right in with us. We headed to town around 8 and got some food. From our seats we got to see the Prince and his cortege. He has the largest feather and I mean that in an innocent way. No-one seems to be sure of the origins of the Prince and his minions as they are called. But he travels from pub to pub with his crowd of fellows. We headed to the first pub where he was and the place was hopping. We managed to get our picture taken with him before we decided a bit of dancing, irish dancing to be exact was going to happen. We formed a straight line, 7 nuns and one priest and did our best to crucify irish dancing. Onto another pub, and more dancing.
When the YMCA came on, we killed people to get to the ’stage’ aka pool table with a board on top, and suddenly the place was being entertained by 5 sisters. Some of the others were relucant to get on the ’stage. I’m not surprised. However, putting on the costume seesm to get rid of any inhibitions you have. This is the only way I can explain why myself and the sister’s man were swinging each other around the stage to Waterscooter, a great carnival song whilst the others looked on in bemusement. That said the brother’s gf was holding her own on stage swinging her skirts up around her knees. She was living up to her sisterly title of Sister Slut 
Enroute home, the village of Horst was treated to The Fields of Athery, Waterloo and any other song we cared to remember whilst we headed to the house and more partying. Sunday, there were a lot of sore heads but I was on for seeing the parade. The party only really gets going on Sunday according to the sister K so next year if we can get a gang again we can stay longer. The parade was good fun, but it was so cold. Thankfully the boyf J’s sister let us hang at the hair salooon owned by the father. So we could step in and out to keep warm. I got slagged because I was more excited about the tractors the the floats.
The only drama for the rest of the weekend was the mate J getting stopped for beeping going through the security and then having to open her suitcase whilst we all stood on and looked. Lets just say the security guards don’t seem too bothered about personal space. Belt unbuckled, shoes off, they were well into it. The funniest was when the other guard who was going through the bag opened up what looked like a packet of some sort of drugs. He looked at all of us and then spent ages unwrapping it to find it was a bar of fair trade soap. He took a sniff, looked at us again and gave a sort of embaressed smile. At least they had a sense of humour about the whole thing.
The costume thing is amazing though. Everyone and I mean everyone is dressed up. When we went to the supermarket, everyone was in costume. You can only imagine my delight when we were shopping on the Saturday for supplies and there was one of the staff dressed as a policewoman?! The costume was very impressive Overall it was a great weekend and the gang we had with us all got on as well, thank god! I shall pop some pics up as soon as I upload them to the pc.
This week we have nothing planned. Tonight, its dinner and the couch. I rang the doc and arranged for my B12 injections so we can get the ball rolling on that. Other then that, we are going to be that boring couple With a rugby weekend planned, we need to save our energy. The kid has an interview with FAS tomorrow so fingers crossed it goes well and she gets something from it. We didn’t hear from all weekend except when the brother txted her the pic of myself and Mammy2 as nuns. You can imagine her response.
