When Düsseldorf´s Hoppeditz crawls out of his barrel of mustard at 11.11 am on Nov. 11, and launches into an acid-tongued verbal duel with the mayor before the crowd gathered in front of city hall, it´s that time again. The "fifth season of the year" has found its way into the Rhineland and will turn the city upside down for duration of the carnival season. The colorful street carnival is the highlight of the activities, the true "crazy days." It traditionally begins in February on Women´s Carnival Day (the Thursday before Shrove Monday) and catapults the city into a state of chaos until Ash Wednesday, with costume balls, processions and all kinds of comical figures on the streets!
As a resident you have the choice of either fleeing town or letting the "normal" madness of these mega-events take hold of you and partying for all your worth. When you put on your fancy-dress costume things start happening during the street parades known as "Zoch." Besides the many parades and carnival highlights such as the queen run on carnival Saturday, in which the Königsallee becomes a raceway for the city´s hottest drag queens, the actual high point of the street carnival is the traditional Shrove Monday parade, with its provocatively designed floats, establishing the Düsseldorf carnival as the "cheekiest party in the world!"
This monster gets rolling on the Joseph Beuys embankment and makes its way through the center city with 70 floats in tow, reaching up to 6.5 km in length. About 1 million revelers join in along its path, enthusiastically shouting "Helau," drinking Alt beer, and displaying an insane zest for life. But even the craziest days have to end. On Ash Wednesday, when comedy finally takes holiday, the Hoppeditz is ceremoniously relegated to his grave unti his next resurrection, and the last reveler has put aside his masquerade, many Düsseldorf people almost go into mourning. But this actually doesn´t last long because the bulging events calendars of this metropolis on the Rhine herald the next highlights – like the grandiosely staged Japan Day – and, to be honest, who can live permanently in a state of revelry?
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