Take Me to the Carnival

This weekend I took a trip to Prague, the Czech Republic’s largest city and one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations.  I can vouch for that, as at any given moment, I could have counted on my hand how many real Czech people were around.  How could I tell?  Well, my favorite was the college boy buying a shirt that read “One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila Floor.”  I’m pretty sure that wasn’t awesome even when I saw it in a Mexican tourist shop.  Makes even less sense in Prague.

Prague is an extremely beautiful city, with stunning bridges and carefully crafted architecture that makes me feel like I stepped into the past.  It was cold, and not the “cute red-nose” cold, but “I think I forgot how many toes I have” cold, and so we ducked into various shops and cafes along the way.  I’ve decided that the best part about traveling to new countries is stumbling upon acts of extreme randomness.  This is only aided by the lack of language skills in the particular country, and in this case, conditions were perfect for discovering something crazy.

We were sitting in a cafe and trying to feel our foreheads again, when we heard a commotion in the street.  The only options were a mid-day bar brawl or a parade, and I was willing to stand at the window and cheer for either.  We were treated to a parade, which I’ve found are weird in any country.  Especially if you don’t know what it is they’re celebrating/mourning/feeling vaguely glad for.  (This last category can definitely be applied to Spain.  I lived in Valencia for five months, and I saw many a weird parade that spread its lukewarm fervor throughout the town.  My favorite was one that lasted about five hours, and while it started out with girls in traditional dress- understandable- it ended in children dressed as things like teeth, or days of the week, and adults dressed as construction workers- not understandable.  None of them seemed overly enthusiastic.  Actually, those might have been actual construction workers, but who knows.)

We quickly left our warm cafe in Prague to rush onto the streets to witness this parade, which was more understandable than most: our waitress explained that it was for “some sort of carnival”.  I wondered how many different kinds of carnivals one might have, but no matter, there was no time- there was weirdness to witness!  There was a lot of noise, but no music.  People marched, and some sat in cars waving.  They all seemed to be dressed quite elaborately as one of four things: French policemen, clowns, gorillas or peasant women.  Oh, this must be the day when we celebrate the moment when Napoleon saved Bozo the Clown from King Kong on the Little House on the Prairie!

We followed the procession to a small market square, where there was a stage set up in front of various booths selling things like homemade cheese, and an entire pig on a spit.  Yikes.  I’m no expert in Czech, but it seemed like people were just taking turns (as gorillas and peasant women) yelling into the microphone and clapping, while the audience proceeded to eat and cheer back.  It was curiously missing alcohol until the microphone was turned over to the musicians, and the costumed folk came into the crowd to dance.  I noticed in the different circles that they produced from somewhere in their garments bottles of alcohol and tiny plastic shot glasses.  I told you they were elaborate costumes.  I was prepared to watch this fascinating event and maybe have a dance near a roasting pig when a French policeman came and shoved plastic shot glasses into our hands and started pouring alcohol.  “Nasdravey!” he cried and went to dance in and out of the merry partiers.  We stayed to drink and dance with them, clapping along to lyrics we couldn’t understand, and celebrating a day that meant nothing to us.  All in all, it was the best Napoleon’s-saved-Bozo-from-King-Kong-on-the-Prairie ever!