It’s Monday at 4:00 am and, suddenly, all the lights go off simultaneously; next thing you know, there are people wearing bizarre costumes and masks while fifing/drumming with lamps on their heads. Where in the world would this ever happen? In no other place than Switzerland, of course! You’ve probably already heard that the Swiss like to do things a bit different from time to time, well, this is by no means the exception.
In Basel, the Carnival (Fastnacht, in Standard German) kicks off at exactly four in the morning the Monday after Ash Wednesday, why? I’m not quite sure, but all I know is that the Catholic Church is not a big fan of the timing, more on that later.
The journey for me started at ~23:45 when we hopped on a DB train. The ride was not unusual, since I’ve been to Basel several times before, due to its proximity to Freiburg. This time, however, the train was mostly full with people who were really excited about the famous basler Fasnacht Morgenstraich–which I’ll translate as “Basel Carnival Morning Parade”–who were already drinking their badischer Wein (von der Soonneee verwöööhnt!) literally left and right. 
Upon arrival, our group started growing because there were several people we met on the way, as well as others whom we already knew but did not know were coming, so we decided to walk from the Basel Badischer Bahnhof, in north Basel, to the center city, which took somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. The walk there was not as boring as I had expected it to be, mainly because we stopped several times to take photos/eat/chat with drunken-locals-with-an-even-more-incomprehensible-Swiss-German (I even took a photo with one, but had to delete to make space for videos). Another interesting stop was at a sausage booth, just after crossing the Rhein. At said booth, I asked the person selling the food for a “Weißwuascht,” and then the man chuckled and told me something along the lines of “Weißwurst? Mr sin i dr Schwiiz, nid i Bayern!” (“White sausage? We’re in Switzerland, not in Bavaria!”) and then he laughed again and told me the Swiss-German word for it, but it was impossible to pronounce and at the moment I can’t remember it. Later on, a friend asked a man in the street when the “Umzug” was coming and he was told that there are no Umzugs in Switzerland, that those happen in Germany and that, however, there is a “Straich” (Streich, in Standard German) coming at four in the morning. The Swiss seem to be very proud of their culture and non-German (?) heritage, or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten every time I’ve been there, but maybe it seems that way to me because people here don’t seem to feel (or admit to) being proud of their German heritage since that’s still a taboo, for obvious reasons.
The parade itself was very surreal, to say the least. By around three or so we were fed and awaiting what we knew was about to come, so we decided to go to one of the streets close to one of the bigger churches (not the Münster). By this hour there were already thousands upon thousands of anxious spectators, most of which seemed to be Swiss. Then, suddenly, it all got dark in an instant, people cheered and fifing was heard. From then on everything seemed, very bizarre and weird in the best possible way. The costumes they were wearing, along with their masks, somehow did not seem out of place when one looked at the lamps they wore on their heads.
There was more to the Morgenstraich than the music and the light. Something else that always captivates the attention of the spectators is the message each float displays. This year, some of the more popular topics were: the Pope, Environmental Problems, Retirment Age, Russia, and loss of ‘Swiss’ Culture–even Homer (not the Odyssey one, but the Simpsons one) made a cameo! The main issue they had with Pope Benedict XVI was his antiquated, colonialistic and intolerant view of the world. Some of the main things they mentioned were his intolerance of other non-Catholic Churches and his crazy public statements, such as saying in Brazil that the natives in South Amercia were ’silently longing’ for Christianity and arguing that Galileo’s trail was fair and just. Of course, no critique of the Catholic Church would be complete without the mentioning the opposition to contraceptives.
(Ratzikal: Roma locuta. Causa finita. Locus Dei.) 
(“Only one Church protects eternally and this Church: that’s me”)
(“it’s just too warm”) 
That’s just a quick sample of the many floats that were there. The last hour or so of our stay was different, because we started walking between musical groups with some of the locals, the interesting part, though scary at some points, is that the groups sometimes stopped while those behind us continued on, and then turned around and walked towards us! This shenanigans continued until our departure, sometime between 6- and 7:30. I was able to go to bed by just around 8:30–good times. This semester is virtually over now. What’s next? Sverige.
- Bork Bork.
