We left Strasbourg at 1:10 a.m. and arrived sometime around 3. Our goal was the Morgestraich, the beginnings of the whole shabang. It starts at 4 a.m. on the dot, when they turn out all the lights! All the streetlights, the lights hanging above us, and even all the front lights of the restaurants still open for the festivities. And then groups of people (called cliques) parade around haphazardly with homemade lanterns on their head! Carrying big lighted paper floats!
Here the six-foot-something John makes an honest attempt to become something like tipsy—this was about 4:30 a.m., and he said “Normally this is the time where you’re talked out and bar-ed out and ready to go home—and it’s too early for a champagne breakfast—but everyone else seems to be a few beers ahead of me! I’m not sure what to do.” Tara and I opted for sobriety, since we feel disoriented enough by the huge crowd and the strangely accented German (respectively).
One of my favorite groups—they put actual lamps on their head, complete with fringes and bad 70s colors!
Each of the bigger floats is intricately painted and has to do with some kind of satire, criticism, or campy joke about contemporary affairs. We saw quite a few about oil, education, and American society (including the cross here above).
Everyone marching wore masks and costumes (in varying degrees of creepiness or craziness), and each clique had flutes, piccolos, and tambours (drums) playing a kind of repetitive cheery tune. John is a musician and said that the drummers seemed to be following no particular pattern, rolling and hitting and speeding up and slowing down and scattering the pieces of the “song” however they liked. They certainly played with enthusiasm!
We had by happenstance started off the night (morning?) with a very good vantage point in the main city square; when we’d had enough of being jostled we decided to tramp off into the steep roads and alleys, finding smaller cliques to follow and heading in the direction of any music. We ended up in a tiny square with mossy trees and tons of kids in costume, and lo and behold, a GLOWING OCTOPUS! We hung around until they rolled off, and then followed after them and became part of the parade ourselves. Talk about a good tour of the city!
And then we found a church (about the size of Princeton’s) which has apparently been converted into a café/art gallery! It was a strange and not unpleasant experience to have a café au lait at 6 a.m. in the nave of a stone chapel.
If we look tired, it’s because we’re exhausted.
And then there was sunlight!
After a brief interlude where a nap was had on a couch in another café, we met up with two of John’s French friends, Laure and Marie, and walked to the main cathedral . . .
. . . which happened to be right up against the Rhine!
Did I mention this is where Erasmus was buried?! Hence my reason for coming to the cathedral. At this point I was too tired to do anything but take one picture, apparently.
The beginnings of another (another!) parade, which started at 1:30pm, right before our train left.
And then Tara got shot with a confetti gun and John got hit with an orange.
I have no pictures! But I took some with Tara’s camera, and will acquire them soon.
On the way home, we slept. I saw enough of the Swiss countryside to be reminded of home (facing west—foothills and mountains!) and apparently mumbled something about it into someone’s ear; the conductor said “STRASBOURG!” and we shuffled back to our beds.
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