Day 4 - 23 February 2015

Holiday/Festival

Schedule

   Today we got to explorer the many wonderful sights of the Fasnacht Spring Carnival on the opening day! The weather was sunny with no chance of rain, but the chilly thirty-seven degree weather with a slight wind chill caused us to all dress warm. The carnival was so exciting we did nothing but enjoy the sights and sounds of it for the entire time we were out of the hotel after eating breakfast at 8:30 a.m. to arriving back at the hotel for dinner at 6:30 p.m. Before we went to the carnival, we purchased carnival badges, and then headed out to the carnival.

Carnival

   While we were at the Carnival on the first day, we saw people with masks with extreme exaggerations of emotions, like the Joker from Batman. People dressed up like clowns and played instruments such as trumpets trying to make the streets of Basel as festive as possible. We followed the moving carnival through the streets of Basel and danced along to the wild beats of a festive band up to the center of the city. Large crowds of people moved with us as we blasted the day away with the most colorful and wide smiling clowns in the world. At 2:30 p.m., we entered a village with some restaurants and we grabbed some cheese and milk as a snack until we could arrive back at the hotel at 6:30 p.m. As we moved from each town and province in Basel, the spirit of the carnival never dimmed as live bands played music through their over-emphasized costumes. 

   At 4:00 p.m., we headed back to the hotel to get dinner and retire for the day in our rooms. For dinner, we ate chicken accompanied with rice and steamed carrots. We returned to our rooms and went to bed at 8:30 p.m.