there was a celebration called Fasching at my town today just right in front of my house.
Basically its a wacky march of a bunch of people wearing scary looking masks and play pranks on people.
the picture above was just a few seconds before i got my face all smeared up with paint! :D
to know more about the german celebration, do visit this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastnacht
and this link
http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au/la/lote/german/links/topics/karneval.htm