Once again, I visited Breda in the Netherlands and this time it was for the carnival. Carnival is a bigger deal in the southern Netherlands but Breda is somewhat know for theirs (not English), too. I was expecting something like the Venice version but it was more like New Orleans mixed with a little Halloween. In other words, absolutely any costume works. Oh, and Breda's is inside. Not all of it, as they have a parade, but the parties are for the most part inside. So if you go, you don't need to dress for winter in the Netherlands.
I took the train (Thalys) which is always great. They have power outlets regardless of class (i.e., in second class). Funny enough, SNCF (the French trains) own 62% of the capital and figured out how to provide electricity in second class Thalys cars, but not on their own. Seriously? The trains are electric and it's 2014.
The high-speed stops at Rotterdam where I connected to the Dutch intercity. The Rotterdam station was a nice welcome. Clean, friendly (because they're Dutch) and the overhead structure was cool. Above and below are a couple shots. My panoramic attempt is below.
I didn't take very good pictures, but I really like the trains in the Netherlands - have since I first saw them in 2003.They always look so clean and they're yellow so they really stand out.
As said, anything goes from costumes. I went as a pilot slash Elvis slash Maverick. You can see below (left) that the Elvis resemblance was uncanny! No, it's not my own hair. For my classmates, they ran with the Kill Bill theme and did a fantastic job as seen below right.
Petra chose to be the heroine, the Bride, and had a great costume. She's holding a plastic sword and what you can't appreciate from the photo is that her outfit actually came with a Samurai sword! It was no kidding, a full-up sword and it was even sharp! Most decorative swords don't come with an edge and this one just showed up in the mail with the costume. Awesome! Celine chose to be one of the bad guys (girls) and went as Gogo Yubari. She came up with a great costume for using stuff she already had. She even had the ball and chain. Nicely done. For me, however, I just used stuff I had and added a custom nametag, some sweet hair and some cool shades.
Above left is a shot of just the hallway (not even the rooms) as an effort to show how crowded it was. On the right is the back of a team of celebrators. It was hard to get a good picture, but they all dressed as Bob Ross and wore these shirts. They even had a canvas for people to paint on. It was a good gimmick. There were also some dudes with butcher outfits with the Tinder logo and they were from the Tinder Meats company. I thought that was clever. By the way, Tinder is a phenomenon I was quite unaware of.
Here is a good group shot during the night. I don't remember who took the pic but I think it turned out great for the available light, and Petra reminded me of Agnetha Fältskog (ABBA) which was cool. It was a great day! Awesome food (burgers!), bike rides, the company, and the event itself! Glad I went!
Above is a random, "what is it" picture. And below is Gard du Nord as I returned home and picked out a Velib' bike. It's easy to take things for granted so I snap pics like this to remind me that I've lived in really nice places. I changed bikes three times (forgot I had bonus minutes) but it was a nice ride home. I like riding bicycles.
-mm-
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