On February 21st, there’s gonna be Faschingsdienstag – which means that Austria’s biggest carnival parade will take place in Graz again! It’s always a lot of fun both for the viewers and the participants, 1000s of people join it every year. The parade will start at around noon at the opera house and will lead through Herrengasse. At Hauptplatz, a jury is judging the best costums and teams. The whole afternoon, there will be DJs playing in the party zone and there’s gonna be a big party!

Update: Come to see it!
The parade will start about 12:00-12:30 and will be finished around 14:30. The route is Opernring - Eisernes Tor - Herrengasse - Hauptplatz - Sackstraße. Be there and support the Erasmus group! It's best if you meet up in small groups as it will be more fun to watch it together. Note that the inner city area will be packed with people and it will be hard to get a spot in the first row unless you come early enough (it might be easier at the beginning of the route or at the end, very hard at Hauptplatz).

This year, we want to show the people of Graz for the first time how many international students there are in our city and therefore want to participate in the parade together! Here’s a link to a video clip of the parade in 2010 on youtube. 

The main idea is that everyone of you should represent his or her country. Everyone will get two cardboards (for your back and front , which will be bound together so you can “wear” them while walking in the parade.

Copyright mypics.at

To personalize the cardboards, we will meet on Friday, February 17th, in our office for some “handicraft time” in the afternoon. We will provide the most important craft materials like:

2 cardboards for everyone to create individually, paint, poster markers, coloured fancy paper, glue, adhesive tape, a stapler, pins and tacks and facial paint so you can paint your flag in your face on February 21st! Additionally to that, we have a huge variety of national flags we can lend you for the parade. Please, bring your own scissors, we don’t have enough of them!

Here (or click on the picture) you can find some images from the preparations:

This is only the basic material, it’s up to you to make something out of it! If you’re from Spain, paint a bull on the cardboard, if you’re from France cut out a baguette from the coloured fancy paper and fix it to the cardboard. If you want to, you can also print pictures showing persons, monuments or whatever of your country and bring them along.

You are also invited to bring your own material or things to fix to the cardboards, of course!!! Hungarians could make a chain out of pepper and wear it, Australians, bring you boomerangs! You can also wear typical clothes or hats from your country (do the Irish have a Guiness hat with them?). You see, whatever, the more creative the better! If you’re not that creative, never mind, it’s all about FUN!

Often, the groups in the parade hand out some things to the crowd. So if you want to, you can also bake or cook something which can be handed out easily in small portions to the crowd (scones from the English, pieces of pizza from the Italians, whatever …) to show the people of Graz the culinary delights of your home country!

These are only some ideas that came to our mind. In order to discuss and share your ideas more easily, we’ve founded a facebook group where you can communicate with each other. There, you can also find some pictures of the parade and of a group of international students, who have already participated in it to get an idea how cool it will be! We will also give you more information about when and where to meet etc. So please join our facebook group here.

And the most IMPORTANT thing: Please come to our office during the office hours (you can do it when you come to get the ESN-card) to sign up for the event and to pay 3€ for the material and the cardboards we’re gonna provide. Also, we need to know how many people and which countries will participate to buy the colours etc.

Our office hours in the next time:

Tuesday, 07.02.2012 (12:30-15:00 after the German Intensive Course) at KF
Wednesday, 08. 02. 2012 (16:00-18:00, after TU pre orientation) at TU
Friday, 10.02.2012 (11:00-12:00) at KF
Monday, 13.02.2012 (15:00-17:00, after the orientation at the KF) at KF
Wednesday, 15. 02. 2012 (19:30-20:30) at TU
Friday, 17.02.2012 (12:00-13:00) at KF

So come and show the people of Graz how colourful international people can be!!! We’re looking forward to your ideas and to joining the parade together with you!