It is Carnival After All

That is what a colleague at work said today after we hopped onto the commuter train (S-bahn) outside of Düsseldorf heading home from work tonight. In German it was "Es ist ja Karneval." He naturally said this about some outrageous event that normally would be considered bizarre or annoying, but during Carnival, you never know, you just never know.

The event was a powerful stench of vomit that enveloped us after entering the train. For my part, I thought it was unusual that so many seats were open in that one car of the otherwise busy train. Then the smell hit me and I said something like "gag me with a spoon" in German and the person who had just sat down who caught my eye, said something like: "amen, brother" in German as he was standing up.

We looked in both directions and thought the best escape was toward the front of the train. We started in that direction and were right. The smell dissipated even before we left that car and our lives returned to normal commuting lives as we past through the 1st class car and into our seats. Es ist ja Karneval.