November 2017 Mission
Düsseldorf Karneval, Germany

Get your Lycra suit stretched and your cape ironed XPETS are going to Düsseldorf.

The Karneval is arguably the city’s biggest annual festival. Karneval, as it’s known in Germany, is quite a big deal in the Rhineland region, particularly in Cologne and Düsseldorf. Known as the ‘fifth season’, Karneval begins at 11:11am on 11th November (11th month) and continues right up until Lent (usually in Feb or March). The festivities take a back seat at Christmas holidays, but kick off back into high gear in early January.

During the Karneval people laugh, dance and kiss! All visitors to the Karneval will certainly forget their cares with 60-70 wagons fantastically decorated with an extravagant amount of time and love, dozens of bands, groups of friends or single person entries wearing costumes many of them made with so much imagination that you don’t recognise a friend or family member! A parade of 5km in length demonstrates the power of the Karneval spirit and its followers! As it winds through the old city, the streets narrow and the parade becomes twice as long, the screams of joy and anticipation become louder.

It is often the case when the parade has passed by to see the remains of tons of confectionary all around!

History was made in 2000 when the parade had a length of 5.5km and 71 wagons; and also the parade has only ever been cancelled twice. The first time being in 1990 because of a violent storm (being changed to May) and the second in 1991 (due to break of war with Iraq).

Ooooh, excuse me (phone rings) ‘hello yes XPETS here, of course we’re always ready to take on a mission and protect the innocent! (Hangs up call) …… XPETS there’s shenanigans afoot and some Crazy Clown is trying to hide all the steins around Düsseldorf so no one can have a drink! All the German beer will go to waste! Oh no! We can’t have this!

XPETS try and locate all the steins throughout the Karneval pictures and locate that Crazy Clown!

At the end of the Mission there’ll also be the usual ‘Caption Competition’ photo so keep your eyes peeled … and don’t forget to use the usual hashtags #XPSHQ (and #XPCOMP when tweeting your competition answers).

Once you’ve found all the steins you need to tweet at the end of the Mission:
1 – the total number of steins found.
2 – the location of the Crazy Clown.
3 – the answers to the two questions.
4 – your caption to the Caption Competition Photo.

Good luck all XPETS!

(Rushes off to stretch out Lycra suit ready and buy talcum powder in)

Location

Düsseldorf