1 March 2004 ---JOURNAL ENTRY THIRTY-ONE---
Damn, I'm sorry it's taken this long to get an update. I've been searching for a new site to host more pictures because the storage on my site is almost up! Lots has happened since we last met, I'll sum up briefly and then give you a journal entry from today.
I went to Cologne at the end of January to see Ryan Adams in concert but the dumb sh*t apparently broke his arm the night before in Liverpool so no concert for Jason. The next weekend was the SuperBowl and unlike last year, I got to watch it. It was on a HUGE screen in a student dorm with cheap beers and food. The game started at 12:30am and we had a blast. I went to Amsterdam last weekend for a couple of days, we had a great time, both "on and off the field". It was my second time there and we got a lot accomplished unlike the first time I was there (see Europe 2001 trip!). And so, last night we went to Basel for Morgenstreich. What exactly is Morgenstreich? Good question, but basically it's the Swiss version of Carneval, and it's quite somber and surreal. I left at 1:20am and got back at 7am. Here's an entry from the journal. Please enjoy and don't fret, I'm still out there, things are going well and I'll get some more photos and other cool things are here soon, ok? Much love, peeps!
...and by 1:20am, we were were out the door to meet Lisa at the train station by 1:35. Steffan's bike had a flat so he and Caro had to ride my bike and I rode hers. The night was still but quite cold and I could feel the breeze from riding slipping between my scarf and beenie. The train station was extremely busy, especially for the middle of the night. There were people mulling about, apparently waiting to meet other people and the line to buy tickets was enormous, and we only had 15 minutes until the train was scheduled to depart. We inched our way forward, me worried how expensive it would be without a bahncard and whether we would even make it when miraculously a second, shorter line opened up and Carol ordered our tickets super schnell and had a Bahncard 50 which drove the price of the whole operation down to about 4,20euro per person. We ran to the train which was waiting at the platform and hopped inside. We found some seats in the bike area and then the train took off. It was full of young people and by that I mean 20-40 years old. Everyone was looking at each other with the same sort of bewilderment, as if we weren't really sure what was going to happen and we didn't.
By about 2:50am, we were in Basel, on the German side, being herded like cattle slowly to the stairs which led to the practically non-existent border crossing. There was a tiny yellow room with two German border guards talking to each other and then about 7 meters later two Swiss border guards talking to each other, all of this in a corridor within the train station. We walked past and were in Switzerland. From there, outside the train station, it opened up considerably and there seemed to be a general flow of cold, slow-moving people in the night. We only needed one street and kept going straight, seeing more and more strangely-dressed people amongst the bundled up. I will get into that more soon. But by about 3:20am we had found our spot across from the red "Rathaus" (city hall) and began the waiting process. More people kept walking past, some bystanders like us and some who were about to be involved. Soon there was a crowd 3-4 deep behind us and we sat down for a bit on the curb and drank some of the hot tea we had brought. We had a little bout with some annoying 12-year French-speaking kids standing in front of us and we hoped they wouldn't be there througout the parade. They left a little while before four and then, as the church bells rang their naked and solemn four rings, all the lights in the city around us went out. It was like the beginning of a concert and there were cheers and catcalls from the crowd but they were soon drowned out by the sound of drums, large snare drums, and a blue, police-like spinning light. The sound and light bounced off the medieval walls and then were joined by flutes. The parade had begun. The first group came by a few minutes later, each person wearing some sort of unique costume and mask, ranging from ogre-looking to Renaissance gentry and the grotesque. They were all playing the same song. They had little lanterns of rich colors supported above them by people walking with them who were also in costume. Sometimes groups all wore roughly the same outfit and mask and other times a mishmash. Each group was playing the same exact song but were at different points in it and so there was the constant sound of drums bouncing off the walls, and flutes chirping in a discordant unison. Then each group had a special display being hauled around, lit up from underneath by candles and these were the only lights of the city. The song was indeed solemn, just before or after war and it was quite difficult for the mind to categorize. In fact, that was probably the highlight of the experience, the inability to understand what was going on, or even why and yet for 45 minutes it continued in earnest. Eventually they stopped coming down the small street we were on and we started making our way back towards the train station but at least two more times we were stopped as a group rounded a corner towards us. The sound of the drums and flutes reverberated and continued and you could really tell where the other sounds were coming from. By 5:25am we were back at the train station and we took a 5:32 train. Mostly people were quiet on that rain, sleeping or rather dozing and after the slow bike ride home, we were crawling into bed around 7am.
