I'm On FIRE!!

One of the lovely things about living in Switzerland is that any regard for safety is mostly pushed to the side. Because of this I have been able to enjoy many things that would be violating many safety codes had we been in the US. One of the best has been Basel's Fasnacht. A celebration in which they "scare" winter away. This is a 72 hour celebration starting with...wait for it...a FIRE PARADE!!!! In a neighboring town, Liestal, they put on a fire parade to help scare away winter. There is fire EVERYWHERE. I mean EVERYWHERE. There are large wagons of fire coming down the street and people holding large torches of fire. There are children carrying mini torches and practically running down the hill while the men try and stop the large wagons from going out of control. We managed to get a front row seat to all of this and almost burned alive from the heat alone. and now some pictures:

confetti was EVERYWHERE. ps the girl on the right? totally photobombed.

those are the torches that were lit

unsure about the confederate flag

whit, zoe, me and Michelle hanging at the fire parade.

MAckenzie and I look at the fire!

the torches

never been so hot in my life.

the torches on FYAHH

 After the fire parade there was some waiting around, in whihc afew of us went to Olin and Nikki's house in order to get at least a few hours of sleep before the 4am parade of lights in Basel. Not as cool as basel but still pretty fun. Unfortunately no pictures of those. It was basically colored lanterns and people in masks playing either the drums or the piccolo. (SO. MANY. PICCOLOS.) loud and high pitched. Just what you want at 4am on monday morning!