A Bona Fide German Experience

I'm a sucker for anything that screams 'yes, I'm true blue!'. During the same visit mentioned in an earlier post, the Mister's friends invited us to join in an annual Village Festival that was happening coincidentally on the Sunday we were spending together. I couldn't believe my luck. It feels almost like receiving an invitation to see Santa check his list. 

N*'s parents stay in the little village, Oldendorf, 30 km from Bremen. (By the way, a German village resembles remote parts of Sembawang more than Africa, where there is running water and Internet connection.) The Mister swears by the cream and butter churned at the farm by her parents. During breakfast, we had a variety of homemade jams. 'Homemade' is a foreign concept to many urbanites. The 'best' homemade stuff are, thanks to brilliant marketing, produced according to a talented grandmother's recipes, but at factories in Jurong. I tried my hand recently at making my own mango jam. It was apparently not too bad an attempt. I think it's great to be able to control the amount of sugar and other junk you add to make preserves. The mango jam I made had only mango and sugar and lasted more than a month. 

[Digression]Having said all that, I read something about Julius Maggi. Here is yet another misconception cleared. Maggi is not Malaysian. I grew up thinking Maggi is a Malaysian brand because of the successful 'So Sedap!' marketing campaign and the word itself sounds so part of the Malay vocabulary. Maggi is in fact born Italian but grew up in Switzerland. The company Maggi was founded when he experimented with ways to dehydrate soups and readymade meals, during the war period, when an increasing number of women left their kitchens to work in factories. Maggi is still immensely popular in Germany, with an entire section of soups, sauce mixes and one-meal-in-a-pot cans in most supermarkets. Still, his best creation has to be the good old 'Maggi Seasoning Sauce'. Interestingly, you'll see such a bottle on the counter tops of fastfood outlets here and cafe tables even in Amsterdam. All I know is that, there is no substitute for Maggi Seasoning Sauce with a fried egg on top of rice. How easy it is to starve home-sickness eh? 

And so, we arrived at the village after the first parade has passed. What to do then? Drink beer of course. It's fascinating how a beer stand appears out of nowhere at such carnivals. But of course, it takes a bratwurst (a favourite local snack of grilled sausage) stand to complete the carnival feel. We stood around and waited half hour for the procession to come round again. I started on my first, but not last, drink of the day. 

Before I recovered from my last swig of beer, N* asked if I could run to help release the cordon in order to allow the vehicles to come through. So, for the first time in German village history, a yellow girl officiated a traditional parade! 

I was speechless as I contemplated the painstakingly decorated 'floats' pulled by tractors. There is a running competition for the best float and N*'s parents have won for a number of years consecutively. You wouldn't wonder why when you see their float. The entire cart was decorated with fresh flowers, each bud pinned firmly to the board. The family made their own psychedelic costumes even, to match the float's theme. No doubt they came in first again this year. 

N*'s dad is the man on the extreme left; 

a jolly deep-voiced uncle with a great sense of humour

The Mister and I were invited to hop onto one particular cart to join in the procession. There started another long round of drinks. People around me were taking shot after shot while I tried not to sip so often from my plastic cup of wine. Nonetheless, all I could hear was, "Drink up! Drink up! Woohoo!" So I drank, and drank, and... finally the Mister and I had to jump off the cart, run into the bushes, not to puke but to...pee! I was half drunk before 2pm.

The procession ended finally at a huge grass patch where there were the usual stands for more beer and more bratwurst. Right before the Mayor of the area announced the winner of the float contest, I leaned heavily on the Mister and next moment, my limps gave way. When I gained some consciousness, I felt myself being carried off somewhere. The embarrassment was forgotten, but for a moment. The scene must have been pretty hilarious. A yellow girl, lying on the ground, with her own pink sock, wetted, on her forehead! N* was so kind in trying to get me up and about again. 

And for you, my loyal blog follower

- an exclusive photo of a bloated drunk yellow girl (Peace)

According to the Mister, I may have been the first to have gotten so drunk, but I wouldn't be the last. Drunk uncles and aunties staggering home much later in the evening is but a given of such carnivals. It was so Singaporean of me, to want the complete experience, albeit in the shortest possible time. Nonetheless, I must say I am proud to have had the experience in its entirety, what with my dramatic fainting act!