carnaval de dunkerque

i'm so sorry about not writing more! it's a lot of work documenting my life here via writing! lol. don't worry though, i'm alive. most of you are my facebook friends so you'll know that i'm alive and well :)

so, carnaval de dunkerque. how does one describe a true assult on one's senses? bright colours. crazy costumes. even crazier parties. loud music. friendly people. flags and tiny umbrellas everywhere.

carnaval de dunkerque is a well-known carnaval that happens in my region of france that only "locals" know about. locals meaning anyone within the nord-pas-de-calais region. for 3 months, the small seaside villages of france's northwestern coast celebrate life and put away the winter blues before (in the past) the fishermen left for months towards finland in search of fish and food.

at the market in dunkerque,
preparing for the festivities to come

my trip to dunkerque started with a quick trip to the store in lille where people go to buy their carnaval outfits. i had looped my friend emily, another edhec exchange student here from sweden, to come on this escapade and conversely, she convinced me to get my carnaval on. 3 hours - and some orange hair, striped tights, and neon yellow boa - later, we were ready to leave for our trip on the saturday morning via carpooling. granted that our trip started with one mishap after another (read, we almost missed our tram because i nearly got run over by a tram because i was illegally trying to cross the tracks - stupid dusk and stupid wire keeping people off the tracks!), on the ride there, we met this other traveller - george, an ex-french teacher turned philosophy student in france from argentina)-who was amazingly cool and ended up spending a lovely day with him walking the sleepy town of dunkerque. 

buildings reflecting the evolution of
the people of dunkerque

dunkerque is actually very plain by day. it`s by night, on the weekends of the 3 months of carnaval, that the city comes alive. imagine an entire town, from little toddlers to senior citizens,  coming to see the carnaval and participate in its folly.

emily and i couchsurfed at the house of 2 crazy `canavaleux` as they call them. monique and zarko have been doing carnaval for 25 years and thus had many things planned for their weekend. we were sooo lucky to have gotten them as hosts because we really got a chance to see all of what carnaval had to offer without really having to go and look for them. carnaval includes not only dressing up, but a parade following the band, dances, traditional chants or songs and many many other strange practices like throwing herring and lobster (all dependent on who the mayor of the time is of course!) i know that this doesn`t make much sense, but it`s because it`s really not something that one can describe; it`s something that one has to experience. while it would be hard to say that one should come here just to do this carnaval, i`d say, if you were in the area, its something that you just had to do. period.

here are some pictures of what it looks like :)

inside a bar on a weekend of carnaval
(note, the fog is due to the mix of cold outside temperatures and copious amount of sweaty ppl inside! lol)

having a snack in costume at La Chapelle at Monique and Zarko

in the streets of dunkerque waiting for the band to pass