Carnaval in Maastricht; or What's Wrong With This Picture?

Anna and Joanna do Maastricht.















Chatting to some random Carnaval goers; they did a tour of Canada!










The parade was off to a slow start, but we vowed we'd have a good time.











On Monday February 19th we took a day trip to the city of Maastricht, which is in the southern province of Limburg, wedged between Belgium and Germany. More importantly, Maastricht throws the meanest Carnaval party in Europe; at least that's what we were told. It turned out to be a bunch of (old) Dutch people dressed in ridiculous home-made costumes, wandering the streets looking more annoyed/drunk than jovial. The parade lasted well over 3 hours, and included every citizen of Maastricht, except for the bitter few who were watching the parade. The Dutch were shooting irritated glances at us for actually having a good time; we laughed so hard at all the random things we saw that would never fly in Canada. Joanna made a good observation: the Dutch aren't phased by anything and never exhibit extreme emotions (joy, anger etc). Dutch friend Mona said it's because the Dutch are so laid back they just don't care, and nothing really pushes them to extremes. Still, here's what Joanna and I found extremely amusing.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the Maastricht Carnaval parade. More importantly, let's play a game: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?











*There's nothing really wrong with this picture; it's actually quite funny to see kids dressed as animals and caged, and forced to jump through hoops. Good example of home-made costumes.












*There was only one officer in sight responsible for keeping order. He just hung out on the road, chatting with parade goers. It was actually nice to see that people can have fun without strict control and not have the scene descend into complete chaos...












*minors drinking on the street












*real pig roasting on the float; float made of styrofoam












*this float sucks












*the kid has a real, smoked, headless fish as part of his costume












*small child sitting on the road picking up confetti; dangerously near the float no?












*children attempting to stop the parade by making a human shield; when they succeeded in stopping the floats the lone police officer struggled to get all of them off the road. it was funny to watch












*Heineken keg on float which containing child












*guy dressed as the pope with a beer in one hand (which you can't see unfortunately), and a cigarette in the other)












*children shooting at a Bishop


At the end of the parade everyone gathered in the main town square. It was a strange, underwhelming day. The Dutch are crazy.