Chamonix and Carnival

Yes, again this weekend I went skiing, again to Chamonix only a different mountain in the resort. On Saturday, my shopping day. Yes, that means I am officially more or less moved in and no longer need to make Ikea runs.

I went skiing with friends of Frank in Geneve. We went to Chamonix (which is in France) and I must say I'm not too impressed with the resort, especially with the rates they charge. The resort is spread over several mountains and while the entire place is quite large, if you want to ski another mountain you need to ski down, catch a bus and get in line to get up. So you pay for the entire resort, but can only practically use one mountain. The multiple mountains, one ticket, is a bit like Whistler and Blackcomb, but at least at Whistler/Blackcomb you can go up both mountains from the same base location.

Anyway, skiing at Chamonix was ok, conditions were rather icy and the resort we were at was rather small. However, it still had fantastic views and *way* better than a trip to Ikea. I was damn tired by the time I made it home though.

The next morning I was up again bright and early (and silently protesting) to head to Luzern for Carnival. Carnival is a pretty big celebration in the Catholic parts of Switzerland (so not in Lausanne or Geneve). I went to visit a friend who comes from a small village close to Luzern. I was invited to his parent's house for the Sunday family dinner in a large Swiss farmhouse. The highlight (for me) of the farmhouse was the heating in the living room. In the kitchen they had a wood stove (still functioning, the Rosti was cooked on it - I only go for the full Swiss experience) and the hot air from the stove gets pipped through this ceramic heating ... thing. You can sit on it, warm your coats up on it, there is a little cupboard to store your slippers and underneath are wooden drawers for socks etc. I. Love. This. uhhh Heating... Thing. And it was great when we came back from the parade.

Given the size of the villages involved, the parade was very elaborate. There were just over sixty floats and half of them were bands. The costumes on both the attendee's and the performers were incredibly elaborate. In the farmhouse we dressed up for the event, going through the older costumes in the attic. I settled for a laurel head piece.

 Here are some heads that we saw before the parade started.

While we were walking by the church there was carnival music, very exciting and loud and like nothing I've heard in Canada. This theme continued with all the bands playing in the parade. The bands were from all the neighbouring villages. One village only had 3000 people but had two bands in the parade.

The costumes were very eleborate.

Many floats commented on newsworthy events of the year. There were several of floats about swine flu.

A particularly fantastic float was about pirates.

Many of the bands also had very small children joining in with instruments of their own and costumes matching the adults in the band.

There was much public consumption of alcohol, many of the floats were handing out drinks. I moved to the front of the crowd a few times to try to get a hot drink but those Swiss-Germans were pretty aggressive. Damn me and my passive Canadian politeness. I did however get an orange thrown out by the first float.

I don't know who these tree people are.

Many of the bands had costumes that were quite dark. Bikers and punks was a big theme with the bands.

No political statement was avoided and nothing mattered because it was just Carnival. Obsessed with Political Correctness Canada would never have allowed much of what I saw.

Walking back through the village I learned about the trees on top of the poles. When you have a child, your friends all raise a tree to the baby and it stays up for at least half a year.

Back at the farmhouse I got a tour of the cow barn, they have about 26 dairy cows which makes it a small Swiss farm and a very small North American farm.