Carnival kicked off here today at exactly 11:11 am. The streets were awash with people half drunk, dressed in the craziest and zaniest of costumes and by evening the same streets had been marked by puke and scarred by broken bottles with drunk people tottering and stumbling everywhere. The road outside my lab turned into one huge street party. This lovable madness will end next Tuesday. So it is only appropriate that I post a photo connected to Cologne’s crazy carnival. But this photo was not shot today, it is from my first carnival in Cologne back in 2004. The ‘supergirl’ was my labmate. Finally, as they say here, ‘Kölle Alaaf’!