Awesome Adventures of the Davidson Four: Carnival!

Bern, Switzerland
Switzerland has four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansh. We are staying in the French speaking part of CH around the Lake Geneva area. Friday we traveled north to Bern, the capital of Switzerland, which also happens to be in the German speaking part of the country.
A while back I was reading about Carnival and saw that Bern, Switzerland was the number five place to celebrate. So when we found out we were going to Switzerland, of course, I wanted to make sure Bern was on our list!
Bern celebrates Carnival with a three-day party called Berner Fasnacht. It is full of bands, floats, utterly crazy costumes, food, parades, and tons and tons of confetti! Being that we have our children with us, I really love that they have a special time dedicated to kids; I wouldn't have to explain too many odd eccentricities to my kids. ;) We decided to go on this children's day. All of the bands march in a parade and costumed children are allowed in the parade as well.
We arrived in the city a couple of hours before the parade was set to start so that we could take in a few city sights as well. The city, like many others in Switzerland was built during the Middle Ages and has an very famous clock tower, named Zytglogge, that is still in operating order. The tower used to be a prison tower and was built during the 13th century, but the clock was added later, during the 15th century, after the great fire of 1405. Miraculously, we found ourselves standing in front of the impressive monument ten minutes before noon so we were able to watch and hear the movements at the full hour! At noon, the small figurines danced around and the bell striker at the very top struck the bell. It was very exciting to watch as a small crowd gathers in anticipation of the event.

Katie took this picture of Jeff and I in front of the Bern Clock Tower

After being entertained by the clock tower, we walked down the main street in Bern to find Einstein's haus. Einstein famously lived in Bern during what he himself termed the happiest period of his life. It is here that he also penned his famous paper, Theory of Relativity. His home has been turned into a small museum.
When we found his house we found that it was closed due to water damage! I was so disappointed. Katie took an online class last year on Einstein and I thought visiting this museum would be the perfect compliment to that class. Oh well. We saw the outside! There is also a small adjoining cafe.
By this time, it was getting close to parade time so we had a bite to eat and went in search of the parade route. Only problem: I don't know how to say "parade" in German and nobody really understood what we were talking about! There were hundreds of costumed people milling about and they all seemed to be heading in different directions! We went first to the old village, but they were setting up food carts and scaffolding so we concluded that would not be a good parade route. We consulted the map that we received from the TI agent, but that was wrong as well. We then found the main street and people were lining the street on steps, eating and talking. We grabbed a step and sat there in the sun for quite a while. We had purchased some decor for the kids to wear in celebration and Natalie took the opportunity to dance and dance and dance in the middle of the street! Nobody seemed to care and she moved out of the way every time a car wanted to pass. That kid cracks me up!!! Here are some pics of her antics:

While Natalie got her dance on, we watched people come and go and finally realized that nobody close to us was there for the children's parade! They were all working people sunning themselves, having lunch, and enjoying the gorgeous weather!
We asked several people to direct us to the parade route and finally a police officer was able to direct us. He asked us where we were from and when we told him California, he seemed very amused.
We finally found the parade route and picked out our location. Within minutes we could hear the first notes of a band playing Proud Mary and could see the Bern Bear leading the procession!
The children's parade was awesome! After each band rolled by, costumed children (and often times their costumed parents) followed in procession behind. It was a little like Halloween in America but times ten! Many of the costumes were very elaborate and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Children were given large bags of confetti and they tossed it everywhere and at everyone! The music was amazing and for a few minutes, we even joined in the parade! (Much to the chagrin of my almost teenage daughter!)
Me: "Let's join the parade!"
Katie: "NO!!!"
Me: "Why not?"
Katie: "We don't have costumes!"
Me: "Who cares?! Let's go!"
So we went down the parade route a small ways, dancing as we went! It was so fun. Katie almost died of embarassment. hahahaha Many families had a theme going: there was the family dressed in Euros, the caveman family with dog bones in their hair, lots of Pippi Longstockings, and tons and tons of princesses. There were thousands of people in a never-ending sea of ogres, pirates, clowns, ninjas, knights, and bees (very popular). The massive amount of people passing by lasted for almost two hours!!! I had such an amazing time at this parade, I wanted to stay for the night time festivities very badly, but our pooches were at home with full bladders. So we packed it in and hit the road home.
One interesting thing happened on the way home, we hit a lot of traffic on the autoroute. When we came up to the cause we found that it was a police checkpoint. We watched as several cars in front of us were pulled out of the line to the side as a police officer checked a list. It seemed like he was looking at license plates maybe? We got a little nervous with our language difficulties and all but thankfully we were let to go through! Whew!
All in all, we had such a great day in Bern. It is truly a fascinating city what with the Swiss National Bank, the Parliament building, the old village, the bear pits, I really can't wait to go back here someday and take in all that this amazing city has to offer! I hope you enjoy some of our pictures of the Children's Parade:

This band started the parade and they were so awesome! We later found them playing on a street corner and we stopped to dance and listen while they played YMCA