Jane, Kayla, and I boarded the train to Switzerland on Saturday night. Jane is the perfect travel buddy for more reasons than one, but especially because she has connections all around the world. Her cousin and his wife, Jason and Donna, live in Basel and were kind enough to let us take over their guest room during our Fasnacht adventure. Jason and Donna are probably the nicest people I've ever met. They made us feel right at home. And if that wasn't enough of a blessing, they also live right in Basel's old town. The festivities happened pretty much on their doorstep. We couldn't have asked for better hosts or a better location. Jason and Donna are members of a Fasnacht group. There are tons of Fasnacht groups, and these clubs are the main participants of the Fasnacht activities. In order to be a member of a specific group, you have to pass certain requirements. For example, some groups are all-male or all-female. Some are for a certain age range. The group that Donna and Jason belong to is the only one that allows non-Swiss people to join. Without these clubs, Fasnacht basically wouldn't happen. Everyone you see marching in the parades are members of a group. Each one makes their own float, acquires masks and costumes, throws treats and räppli (confetti) on the parade spectators, and plays the piccolos and drums for three days straight. Because they were in crunch time before the official start of Fasnacht, Jason and Donna were pretty busy.
Since we had a full day in Basel before any Fasnacht celebrations began, we asked Donna what we should do. She raved about a spa in Rheinfelden - only short train ride away - so guess which train we were on the next morning? In the words of Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford, "treat yo' self." Rheinfelden is your typical charming, Western European town. The buildings were old and beautiful. It was very picturesque and made the walk from the train station to the spa quite relaxing.
Since we had a full day in Basel before any Fasnacht celebrations began, we asked Donna what we should do. She raved about a spa in Rheinfelden - only short train ride away - so guess which train we were on the next morning? In the words of Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford, "treat yo' self." Rheinfelden is your typical charming, Western European town. The buildings were old and beautiful. It was very picturesque and made the walk from the train station to the spa quite relaxing.
I had never been to a spa before - how cool that my first experience was in Switzerland! We started in the outdoor pool. The water kept my body warm, but the air on my face was freezing. It even started snowing. We checked out the three aromatic saunas. My favorite one was definitely the citrus room, but I guess I'm really not a fan of saunas in general. Willingly sitting in a tiny sweltering room with sweaty strangers is not really my cup of tea, even if it does smell like citrus. Hands down, my favorite section of the spa was the dead sea in the basement. We weren't exactly sure where to find the dead sea. The staircase leading to the basement were not immediately apparent, so we wandered trying to find it for a little bit. At one point during our search, we stumbled into the naked sauna. That was shocking. Don't mind the clothed three young 20-somethings in the midst of a handful of elderly couples in the nude... We retreated from the room where we clearly didn't belong and finally found the dead sea. Other than the sound of splashing, it's silent when you walk downstairs. But once you start floating on your back with your ears under the water, you can hear music being piped underwater. I could have spent all day floating weightlessly in that salty pool. Although I somehow managed to get some of that water in my mouth which was pretty revolting for several reasons.
The Fasnacht festivities finally started Sunday night. The town of Liestal has a tradition called Chienbäse which is a parade that always takes place after sunset the night before Morgestraich. How can you have a parade in the dark? Well this parade is successful because it consists of nothing but fire.
It starts pretty small. People carry logs that have had their ends split to form a basket shape, and a fire is lit in those baskets.
It progressed fairly quickly from there. The split logs were replaced with burning wagons that were small enough for a child to pull. But they kept getting bigger and bigger.
Eventually the carts got so big that eight grown adults were needed to pull each one and the huge flame was as tall as the four-story buildings we were standing across the street from. The wave of heat that washed across us as these huge carts passed by was so intense, it felt like my hair was going to burst into flames. It was also slightly terrifying when gigantic clumps of burning ashes flew toward me.
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| Firewalk anyone? |
We returned to Basel after Chienbäse ended with enough time to get about 4 hours of sleep until the next event started. The alarm rang just before 4am and I stumbled downstairs to hang out of the living room window and watch the parade pass right by Donna and Jason's house. At 4:00 exactly, the city shuts off all power for a few seconds. Then, all at once, the drums and piccolos start up and the cliques start marching through the streets in costume with their lanterns.
This goes on for a couple of hours, but the parade gradually thins out. It doesn't stop completely however. I'm not kidding when I say that the piccolos didn't stop once they started. There was not a single moment during the rest of my stay when I wasn't listening to piccolo music. I got used to it so I wasn't always conscious of it, but those musicians were still playing their hearts out.
The official carnival parade didn't start until 1:30pm. I managed to get a couple more hours of sleep even though piccolo players and drummers were still marching past my window. Then Jane, Kayla, and I layered up, pinned our 2015 Fasnacht pins on our coats, and marched outside to be greeted by freezing rain. Great. We left early enough to meet Donna and Jason at their float before the parade officially began. Each Fasnacht group comes up with a theme for their float, costumes/masks, and lanterns. It changes every year, but many groups choose to poke fun at worldwide political issues that are currently in the news. We were told it is not uncommon to see Obama included in several groups' themes. This year, Jason and Donna's group chose a really interesting and funny theme. They researched weird Swiss laws and painted their float with pictures that represented those laws. Their costumes also went along with this theme, so Donna was dressed up as a police woman and Jason was dressed as a sleepy old man. His costume referred to the law that you are not allowed to flush the toilet between the hours of 10pm and 4am.
Jason told us where to stand to get the best view of the parade and hopefully to get a lot of the treats that were thrown from the floats. Jason and Donna were throwing carrots and little bottles of schnapps from their float. And of course räppli.
We took up position just a little further down the street and watched the parade go by. I'll say it again, Fasnacht is infinitely better than Karneval. The masks especially are incredible. Some of them are slightly frightening, but in a cool way.
I have no idea what political statement/social commentary any of these groups were making.
We probably lasted about an hour or two before we were just too cold to stand outside any longer. The group that showed up after us yet managed to push themselves in front of us didn't help matters. Suddenly our perfect view of the parade was impeded by a handful of adults who let their 15 children run wild in front of us. Kayla, Jane, and I went back home to find some food. Right as we finished eating and were heading back out into the city, Jason and Donna were returning home with some of their friends. We finally got to try on their crazy masks!
After the parade is over, everyone goes out to keep the party going. The three of us started the evening at a famous bar, the Pinguin (no, I didn't misspell that) Bar. Then we met up with Jason and Donna's Fasnacht group in their keller. The best way I can describe a keller is that it's the group's clubhouse. It was in the basement of some building and the whole group was their celebrating. We planned to only stay for an hour tops before going out to find people our own age. Yeah, that didn't happen. Donna, Jason, and their friends were so hilarious, we ended up staying for hours. Donna mentioned a few times that she felt bad for keeping us there with people who were twice our age. But hey, age didn't matter in this case. We had a blast in the keller. I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard.
Eventually we managed to pull ourselves away from the keller and ended up at a club that looked like it was the place to be. The crowd was spilling out the door. It was insane inside. There was barely a square inch of unoccupied space. At one point, a band pushed their way inside to continue entertaining with drums and piccolos. You can't escape it. Although this band also had a trombone and an accordion to spice things up a little bit. We met a few people. Jane was thrilled when some man gave her a cheap pair of plastic sunglasses. Kayla found a carrot in her bag that she caught during the parade and held it while sitting next to the bar for a little bit.
We decided not to waste a single Fasnacht minute which meant that we didn't go to sleep that night. We stayed at that club until we had to catch our train around 4am. We walked to the train station and only got lost for a few minutes. Thankfully we still made it on time to catch our train. I have never been more grateful for my ability to fall asleep in moving vehicles. Cars, trains, planes, crazy Ugandan taxis - you name it, I'll fall asleep. I think I was unconscious before the train started moving and I stayed that way the whole ride home. I think that added up to four or five hours of sleep. We arrived home and immediately got down to business. Kayla went home to start working while Jane and I rushed over to German class. It was an exhausting, sleep-deprived day, but Basel was completely worth it. If you ever find yourself in Switzerland or the surrounding area in February, plan a trip to Basel and watch the crazy Fasnacht festivities. And don't be surprised if you're still pulling räppli out of your pockets in June...
