The end and the beginning

Yesterday was the end of the feasting and today is the beginning of the fasting (or Lent). The end of feasting was traditionally used to finish off any meat or meat products like fat. So, that's what we did yesterday. 

There were some bacon cubes and fat left over from something or other and as in some countries Shrove Tuesday is Pancake Day (UK mainly), I baked pancakes! And because of the bacon and fat they were a lot more scrumptious than the ones I normally have. 

My parents loved them as well, although my father was complaining about the sugar syrup. It's from Zeeland and he is from Friesland, which is the eternal struggle in this household! My mum buys the first, my dad buys the latter and in my opinion they taste okay, but have nothing on the caramel sugar syrup I like!

At the end of dinner (yes, in the Netherlands they can be eaten for dinner), there was one pancake left over and I thought that I would have that one for breakfast this morning. Wrong! My mum is apparently a pancake lover and had eaten the last one while my dad and I ran an errand last night. Washing the dishes afterwards so we wouldn't notice! A right fiendish action!

By the way, our Dutch pancakes are nothing like those American things. There are countless stories of Americans going to a Dutch pancake house and ordering 10 pancakes, thinking that is not many. As one pancake is the size of a good pizza however... And when you go to a pancake restaurant/boat/mill, they don't just come in pancake, there are fillings galore as well. 

Anyway, that was the feasting done, now for the fasting. I think I will try (see what I did: try) to go without chocolate for Lent. It should be possible, albeit quite hard. We will see how I will fare...

Carnaval continued

Yes I know, I am dragging this out a bit, but there is not much happening in my life right now. Unless you count me getting my Proof of Good Behaviour already! Liking that very much. Anyway, back to carnaval. 

Let's get some historic and religious context here. Originally it was a pagan feast, celebrated as early as 5,000 years ago by the Mesopotamians. The Egyptians, the Romans, basically everybody had a feast where the boundaries between owner and slave were down, where the slave could dress like the owner and even make fun of him. Usually this feast was between the winter solstice and the winter equinox (ie December and March).

Herman Brood (bread) was a musician and artist from Zwolle

When the church entered the arena and they started converting all those pagan peoples, several feasts were kept to not alienate the new Christians. One of them being this New Year's or Midwinter feast. It would however get a more Christian context. 

According to the Bible, Jesus fasted for 40 days in the dessert, before he was eventually taken from his disciples and died on the cross. There had not been something to mark the beginning of the fasting period before, but now there was!

The basics were still the same: dress up or down, make fun of your 'betters', eat and drink. But now, instead of celebrating the coming of spring, it would announce the coming of the fasting period. It would start on the Sunday and finish on Shrove Tuesday. Three days of painting the town red. Then from Ash Wednesday, the fasting would start.

When the Reformation started in Europe, most countries (even the ones that remained Catholic) abolished carnaval, but in the years that followed some have taken it up again. It is celebrated all over the world, New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro being the most famous ones of course. 

Confetti

So, enough school mistress today. I hope you enjoyed the remaining photos and little films I had.

Carnaval

On Saturday I wanted to get to town. I needed some different coloured threads and there would be a parade because of carnaval. Which is what I went to see first.

I didn't have the best view: several people in front of me bobbing their heads up and down, but overall I was okay. We stood for a long time waiting though. And the two minutes away was easily ten minutes, but eventually they started coming.

The first two photos are of people finding their way to the beginning of the parade or just to their friends. It seemed to me that a lot of effort had been made to look fun. The lady with the green face actually had a little (stuffed) dog slung over her shoulder!

The third photo is of the head of the parade. He was a member of the official carnaval clubs that exist in and around our town, hence the head gear. 

This was part of one of the floats. Those floats are quite old and will be used year after year. As long as they can get rid of all the 'snot in a can' of course!

This gentleman was dressed as 'Dorus'. He was a variety artist, who did mostly sketches and singing. One song of his dealt with two moths living in his coat, because "you shouldn't wreck young love". 

I loved this Japanese/Chinese inspired ladies/gentlemen. They carried signs around as well which were quite funny, but I didn't manage to capture any of those! Which was annoying.

The last thing I want to show you is a little video I shot as well. One of the floats that came by and the type of music you can expect to hear during the carnaval weekend: loud, silly and loud!