The unexpected carnival

What is the world coming to: I actually spent an entire week in Germany?! Monday to Thursday was school as usual which is still fine most of the time. Friday was wonderfully lazy, exactly what I needed after waking up at 6 for the previous four days (no amount of time spent in Germany will convince me that 6 is a reasonable time to get up). In the evening I went to the English speaking group in Hildesheim. I am fully aware that this is not the right way to go about improving my German but it is perfect for guilt free, complicated English. I enjoy being able to speak English as I want to speak it, rather than thinking about whether the language is too complex. I have to leave early (loving the 21:38 last train home on a Friday night) but it's good fun.

On Saturday I dragged myself to Bremen. I was so so tempted to stay at home but a quick flick through my diary revealed that I only have four unallocated weekends before leaving Bad Salzdetfurth, thus motivating me to go out and about. Once in Bremen I followed the crowds of people from the station to the main square, where we were greeted by an oversized cat on a cherry-picker. The square was packed with people listening to this most knowledgable of cats as she discussed the concept of 'Heimat'. Some of the people were people that looked like people, but others were people who looked like parrots or boats or ferris wheels. The penny dropped. I had just found Bremen Karnival.

To be precise I had found the very beginning of the parade, where each group was introduced before setting off around the city centre. So I found myself some stairs to stand on (short person problems) and watched. I think I have mentioned before that Germany does bizarre worryingly convincingly.

Eventually I'd had enough of watching the parade (aka. my toes were numb) so I went for my city explore. I'd already found the main square, with its spectacular Rathaus [town hall, but Rathaus is a much better word] and St. Petri Cathedral so headed towards the river. There was another church but little else to note so I headed towards Böttcherstraße. This is an impressive art nouveau street, with plenty of cafes, shops and a museum. It was a lovely place for a wander, something which I had not expected from Bremen!

Rathaus & Dom // Böttcherstraße // Bremen

It was then time to go back to the station, with a brief stop at the city moat on the way. There was a windmill but after last week I couldn't face taking another photo of a windmill!

Bremen was nothing like I expected. For some reason I thought it would be industrial and not exactly beautiful but I was pleasantly surprised. The main square in particular was lovely, but there were plenty of pretty buildings dotted around. Although the carnival was a shock I had wanted to go to carnival here so that's one thing to tick off the lift. All in all, Bremen was worth dragging myself out of bed for!