This weekend I didn't wear much other than my costume, being as it is what is called the 5th season in Germany: Carneval, Fasching, Mardi Gras...whatever you want to call it.

In Germany everyone gets dressed up in costumes and parties hard from Thursday to Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  There are basically no rules and everything goes.  Depending on where in Germany you are (like Cologne) it really is the craziest time of year with no holds barred.  There are lots of parties, balls and bar-hopping, but the thousands of big and small parades are what pull the people into the streets, where they will watch the parade of mostly hand-made floats pulled by tractors, and in my region of Germany, which is the wine-growing region, they are very "wet" parades with wine being passed out to the bystanders (and drank by the parade-goers, too).

It's an excessive, crazy, wild time of year and I love it!  I wish we had had carneval growing up in Canada!

So, here my outfit of the day on Saturday and Sunday:


And here a few pics of our parade: