dressing up

Germany is known for its love of Carnival but, though I live in a Carnival-crazy area, I am not really into it. Too cold, too many people and too much drinking for my liking.
Every year in August though we have a horse rallye at the barn which involves a 4-hour-ride through the woods, stopping at different stands to do funny games with or without horses and collecting points. It also involves dressing up and there’s a price for best costume.
This year, my friends and I dressed up as bavarians (no, we do not dress like that in everyday life…ever!) and since we rode a bunch of Irish Tinkers the horses went as cows.
My friend with make-up on but still in normal clothes (isn’t she gorgeous?):

and Dana in full costume (I have no words for this, except to say she looked absolutely perfect):

I don’t really have a good picture of the horses, but here you can guess at how they looked a little.

In short, they wore horns and a bell with their names (Lotti, Seppl, Resi, Julchen…their real names btw are Johnny, Sky, Jimmy and Nico). Their manes were braided and we stuck little bavarian flags in them. Their tails we put in tights and they wore a blue and white tulle bow. OK, writing this it sounds not very animal friendly but please be assured they didn’t mind at all! They are the friendliest and most placid little horses and cared very little for anything but the fact that they got to go on a nice long walk through the woods.
In fact, they are the perfect horses for things like that, they don’t spook or get nervous by the games and they had a big part in our coming out 6th place (out of 25).
At every stand we performed a little sketch ourselves, made the stand people yodel and gave out a yodel diploma, some chocolate and these cute bottles of raspberry liquor as reward:

Need I mention we won best costume?

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