Off-Topic: Stuttgart Fasching Parade 2023

I spent this afternoon in Stuttgart watching the yearly Fasching parade. I say yearly, but it was cancelled the last two years because of the Corona pandemic. It's good to see Germany's pagan culture being celebrated again. In past years I stood at the Schloßplatz, the central square where the parade ends, but this year I stood at the corner of Tübinger Straße and Eberhard Straße. That's a better place, because the parade did a 90 degree turn, so the corner was used for the witches to pause and put on small shows before continuing. It was also wide enough for the witches to crack their whips.

This year the Stuttgart City Council banned the use of confetti, but nobody paid attention to the ban. Confetti was thrown liberally, and so much was left on the ground that the children were picking up handfuls and throwing it at one another afterwards.

There was an attempt to disrupt the parade at the very corner where I was standing. Stuttgart's garbage collectors are on strike. They stood behind the barriers chanting slogans, and they were throwing whole buckets of confetti onto the road. The police spoke to them, but there were no incidents, and the noise from the parade soon drowned them out.

One of the witches drew a heart on my head with a green marker pen. My bald head makes a good canvas. I would have left it, but a second witch came by later and smeared black ink on my head, just making a mess.