Woohoo.. After pretty much 3 years of not blogging I decided it was high time to record some thoughts about the last two crazy days :p
Liestal Fasnacht/Chienbase
Heard about this from Sich since we got here; one of his colleagues or someone one or other told him about how their festival includes burning huge stacks of wood and firefighters are on hand just in case. So I have this picture in my head of some rural countryside town and a procession of wheelbarrows or something stacked with kindling wood. Nothing could be further from reality, it turned out :p
Liestal is a small town northeast of Basel and has a cute little town centre. Admittedly I think we only managed to walk through it on a Sunday or something when most things were closed. The other time we ended up there was for a small Christmas market. Anyway, it gets crazy packed for this event, and people are indeed lining the streets. Prior to arriving, we have been cautioned by multiple people to "wear old clothes" cos embers are flying all over the place and could burn a hole in your clothes. I'm like ?! we have no old winter clothes! We're from Singapore! Anyway.. we managed as best we could and thankfully our clothes escaped damage and destruction :)
First thing we encounter when we get out of the train station is a huge crowd. Well, to be fair, the crowd was already present on the train; we were squished like sardines on the train going there. Anyway, said crowd migrates towards food stalls (your typical wurst aka sausage stands) and a little further down there is a huge band playing. Sich said it reminded him of the Stanford band. I'm like yep, crazy jumping around, a lot of energy, sounds about right! The tuba players have little seals on their tubas! So cute.
After being entertained for a couple of mins we decide to move on. We have also been warned to get there early to get a spot cos the sidewalks fill up quick! I think we were standing there waiting from around 6:20pm to 7:20pm. In the cold! I had trouble feeling my toes at intervals. Then again, that happens somewhat frequently. Anyhow, the lights go out at 7pm promptly. We are like yay!! It's starting! Nope, not quite. The next 20mins or so is spent waiting in the dark (while houses around turn off their lights too). There were a couple of bands entertaining us here and there, but soon they too have to clear off the street. I guess parades don't start on Swiss time (it was supposed to start at 7:15pm but nothing yet).. Or my watch was fast.
Finally we start hearing stuff! Woohoo. I thought it would just kick off straight with all the fire stuff, but it was just a normal parade with the standard Fasnacht piccolo drum combination and head lanterns/bigger lanterns first. Still pretty cool, since I haven't seen any Fasnacht stuff in person yet. Only checked out some videos/pictures online to get a flavour of what to expect.
Soon enough, the fire stuff comes out. Not super impressive at first, people carrying huge brooms (though they do look pretty heavy) lit on fire. But after a while! The big guns come out.. Huge rings of firewood flaming and almost looking like they're going to torch the electric lines overhead! I also realized what people meant about the embers; they really are flying all over the place.
It really seemed like the procession was never ending. After about 40mins or more, I nudged Sich and was like, should we start moving? My idea was actually to go home but Sich wanted to follow the procession. Also, the crowd made it kind of hard to do anything else :p The streets were literally plastered with glowing embers/log bits that had fallen off paraders' broomstick things. Crazy! I'm glad our shoes escaped destruction too, although Sich's shoes did end up with a fine layer of ash on them. Oops.
