Masopust is a typical Czech tradition to celebrate the end of winter and the arrival of spring. It is a hedonist carnival with lot of eating and drinking when anybody can dress up or wear a mask. We could see mostly kids who happily 'transformed' into their favorite animals or characters, like a bear or Spiderman. The best costumes were even rewarded with some presents.

As Masopust is one of the most important events of Toulcuv Dvur, Vladimir and I definitely wanted to take part in the celebration, thus we participated by representing some of the traditional characters of the Czech carnival: me as a groom and Vladimir as my "beautiful" bride.

We arrived a bit earlier than the official start in order to dress up and everything went well, until we caught a glimpse on the crowd what gathered. Many people were interested in the event and wanted to see Toulcuv Dvur's "show", so when our time came to stand on the stage, at the first moment we freaked out a little, but later when we could see the happy faces of children we could realize it is all about fun.

After the representation of every character, the crowd started walking with us to the Botic river where we made a huge common circle and danced together on the small brass orchestra's live music. The festival finished by going back to the ecological center where many stands were settled with candies, meat, cheese, beers and other traditional meals. Masopust was definitely a big fun for us and brought us closer to the interesting Czech culture.

Judit