This past weekend was the biggest festival of the year in Mons.  It is called the doudou. I have no idea why it has the name that it has, but it does.  Now to understand the massiveness of this event, it is necessary to look at my photos at www.manderhill.shutterfly.com.

Now to explain the events. All weekend there was music (live and DJs) everywhere, beer stands and food stands. It was almost like a block party, but it was the whole city.

This event is based around two saints; the two patron saints of Mons. The first is St. Waudru. She is the woman who founded Mons about 1000 years ago. There is a LARGE church that is built in her honor. In the church, is a gold box that holds her relics. Once a year (this weekend), this box is taken down and placed on a chariot, which is then paraded through town. It is a heavy chariot, so it is drawn by 6 draft horses (you know, like the Budweiser ones). This parade is huge! Anyways, the goal is when they reach the ramp of St. Waudru, the chariot can make it up in one thrust. If it doesn't, then that is a bad omen. I guess there are only two times it didn't make it and each time was the year one of the World Wars began. Don't worry, it made it this year.

Right after they get the chariot up the hill, there is the parade of St. Georges that comes down to the Grand Place. Each year there is a reinactment of St. Georges fighting the dragon. I don't really know how to explain what happened because there was so much happening on the battlefield at one time. I can tell you that if you manage to get one of the hairs from the dragons tail, that is good luck. A friend of mine got me one, so I have good luck now. So this reinactment thing takes about a half hour. I guess there is a order of events that have to take place. Like I said, there was so much happening at the same time and I wasn't close enough, so I couldn't tell you exactly what happened. But I can tell you that these two events are such a big deal that the Belgian king and queen were here in Mons. I saw the profile of the king. Ooooh. Probably the closest I will ever be to royalty. Oh, they also have a doudou song.  The words of the chorus are:

C'est l'doudou, c'est l'mama

C'est l'poupee, poupee, poupee

C'est l'doudou, c'est l'mama

C'est l'poupee St. Georges qui va



They don't really make any sense, so I'm not going to bother translating.

Overall, the weekend was a very interesting cultural experience. It was hard to believe that this was actually the same Mons that I had been living in during the past nine months. Crazy.

Tomorrow, I am leaving for a trip to the south of France, so I will write about that when I return next week. I am also trying to get my stuff together since I fly home next Wednesday. Things are falling into place here, sort of. I had forgotten how long it takes to do anything here (I had to go to the bank 3 times today to close my account). Anyways, stay tuned for my Mediterranean adventures next week!