Festlavn! or the new adventures of Pippi Longstocking

This past weekend was Festlavn, which is the Danish version of Carnival or Mardi Gras. Overall, it is a Danish Halloween. Little kids go around to house to house dressed in costumes and sing a little song. They carry little boxes that people put money or sometimes candy into. That only occurs one night, but Festlavn lasts the entire weekend. It also includes lots of parades, including this one that we randomly happened onto Sunday afternoon.The Danish were not nearly as excited as we were about the parade. The streets were not even blocked off and cars kept going down the street. The parade also had to stop at red lights, which was kinda funny.
Another major tradition of Festlavn is the cat barrel. They used to stick a black cat in a barrel, and then beat it with sticks to keep bad luck/demons away. Also, they thought it would keep away the plague during the middle ages. Now, they obviously haven't killed a black cat for this tradition in about 100 years. They even sometimes used to just stick a dead black cat in the barrel and knock it down. Now, it is just filled with candy and whoever knocks it down becomes the Cat King/Queen. Sadly, I was one of the first to hit it so it didn't break, but my Pippi strength did let me hit it so hard that the lights went out for a few seconds.
Here are some of my friends from my kollegium. The Keops party committee threw a Festlavn costume party. From the right, JD was a paperback writer, Kelly was Rose Weasley, and Lucy was Princess Leia. I obviously was Pippi Longstocking, which I found for cheap in the toy store. It was a costume for 6-7 year olds, which needed some alterations to make fit,but still looked so good that I was a finalist for the costume competition.
Here is someof my competition in the costume contest, a gangsta fairy, a cop, and a ski bum. Inexplicably, the ski bum won. I was obviously robbed and should have won.