Me You UCN: Aalborg Carnival Part 1

Hello everyone!!

Do you know what characterizes Aalborg the most?

When I am asking my friends, they are not saying city of schools, manufactures, but carnival!

I will make this blog post in two parts, since it is really a lot to write about:) I also asked some danish friends to write their reflections on it, so you can have broader overview. In this post I will focus mainly on a history of Aalborg Carnival and its present events. I found even myself, going to carnival party but I did not actually know how old is this tradition and who was an initiator.

In 1983 Kirsti Thorvaldsen, Ebbe Lauridsen, Kaj Steensgard and Bramwell Flyckt established association Aalborg Carnival as celebrating fantasy and the coming of spring through tranfsormating the city into theatre with the citizens as actors and a city as a stage.

The carnival takes place in the last week of May (week 21) and in the present times is known as the biggest carnival in Northern Europe. The first carneval took place on May 28, 1983 and consisted of 5-10 000 participants.

Aalborg Carnival is known from its many carnival events :

(aalborgkarneval.dk)

Children's Carnival in which all age children dress up and go through the city of Aalborg together with their parents, ending the trip in Kildeparken, which is tranfsormed into a wonderful universe filled with music, dance and magic. This year's Children's Carnival starts on May 19th, in Gabels Torv, at 10:00. The entrance to a filled of music park is 30DKK. I just can wish that my 8-years old cousin could be here that day.. :)

(aalborgkarneval.dk)

Battle of Carnival Bands which is recognized as international carnival celebration in which lots of interesting carnival groups from all over the world come and fight for the title of Carnival Group of the year. It is always lots of fun because Aalborg is alive with many people coming to the streets and watching long parades which are always colourful and filled with joy. It is also interesting to invite your parents that day because it is something you can not see in your home countries! This year it starts on May 25th at 16:00

Took from my window

The Grand Parade is my favourite carnival event which attracts over 100 000 people to the streets of Aalborg. Each year about 15 proffesional carnival groups open the parade (this year on 26th of May at 10:00) and following them are thousends of people dressed out and celebrating life. There are 3 different meeting points in the city but they are crossing each other in Borgergade/Vesterbro. I live in Vesterbro and trust me - it is so noisy and you can see so much fun on the street. You can not believe how people are differently dressed. You can see the pictures HERE :)

This Year Theme is The World Upsite Down! And believe me - people are already preparing for this big event, last time when I was walking, I saw people buying clothes in the Carnival shop so I thought - I need to have pictures for you guys and show you all these fun costumes! It is something you don't wanna miss! You need to come to the street and have fun! If you are not in Aalborg yet, take your family, come and see this event! You will see how we party here :) In the next post I will write you my experiences from carnival and my danish friends :) Also how the party in Kildeparken look like :)

Before going to Kildeparken party I was home filming a bit :) Here you can see how it all looks from my window and how many people are there. Everyone dressed differentely :)

Tell me, how would YOU like to be dresses this year?! :)