Today, more than 120 samba groups from neighboring countries make Bremen their destination in the weekend before the traditional Carnival celebrations. The organizers know that they can not compete with the likes of the big area carnivals such as Koln, so they move their date each year to a different weekend, and in doing, have turned Bremen’s Carnival into one of the largest Samba festivals in Europe, offering a weekend of high-adrenaline samba nights and a Saturday theater performance on the Marktplatz that is incredibly creative.

I meet a group of 16 year olds from Whitten, Germany, named Barulheiros who traveled to Bremen for the first time to play at Bremen carnival. They started playing Samba music at the age of six, inspired by a local priest who served in Brazil for six years and encouraged them to practice samba in his church. Other groups come from Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland, all drawn to samba culture.

Besides the samba parties on Friday and Saturday nights, there is an elaborate free stage production in the Marktplatz on Saturday afternoon. School children make costumes to act out the annual theme. This year it is “Land Underwater.”
The production tells the story of humans forced to live underwater with sea animals because of environmental changes, and, in a nod to the financial crisis, the degree to which humans will claim responsibility for their actions. “Each person says it’s others, not them, who is responsible for the financial crisis,” Martin, one of the organizers tells me. “But then each person says they want a new car, a bigger house, the newest mobile phone.”

Shopping bags fly through the air during the production, symbolizing consumerism, and the how consumerism leads to pollution. The theme wasn’t incorporated last year, Martin says, because a year ago “we in Germany weren’t yet fully understanding the financial crisis, but this year we are.”

It’s an elaborate free outdoor production that has helped Bremen’s carnival grow, all started twenty five years ago by a group of individuals with different artistic backgrounds coming together to perform. It’s a story that would make the Bremen Town Musicians proud.

In the Marktplatz, you’ll find the bronze statue of the four musicians: the donkey, dog, cat and rooster. It was created in 1953 by a local sculptor, Gerhard Marcks.

Locals still today joke that the animals should be facing towards the town hall, not away from it as they are, because the “real robbers today are the politicians.” The animal musicians, you may recall, or read here, scared a group of robbers out of a countryside house by standing in the formation seen in this statue. The tradition in Bremen is to hold both of the donkeys legs, close your eyes and make a wish.

Walk into the square, across from the Roland statue, and look closely at the cobblestones. You’ll find a circular well that makes the sounds of the animals when a coin is placed inside. I’m told that the well has become part of a local drinking ritual: when out at bars and wanting to see who will buy the next round of beers, locals will go (stumble) to this well and bet which animal sound will be heard when the next coin is deposited.

The coin well has collected over 37,000 Euros in the last two years ($50,000), and all of that money is donated to charity. The well may be a good metaphor for Bremen’s connection to the Brothers Grimm tale. There’s not much to actually see in town related to the tale besides a few statues (and plenty of souvenirs), but what endures seems to be more of a spirit of solidarity emboldened by the tale, such as the donation of the money from the well to local charity.

During my visit, and throughout the winter and spring months, there are numerous tombola raffle tents raising money for a local park. And a former mayor established the Bremen Solidarity Prize, to acknowledge those who fight for freedom in the world.

The Town Musicians took to the road to Bremen seeking a more ideal life (the rooster, after all, was to have its head cut off and thrown in a soup the next day). Happily ever after, it may be Bremen that sought and found more ideal ways because of the Town Musicians.

Bremen is not a small village, nor a large city, with a population near half a million, the 10th largest city in Germany. (“Bremen is a village with a tram,” one man tells me this afternoon.)

So it is easy, and entertaining, to walk around. On this winter day, the windmill which houses a café stands guard in the town center, and still, in the chilly air.

As does the statue of Roland, one of the largest in Germany, built in 1404, purposely facing the large church to tell the bishops that the townspeople did not approve of the church’s monopolizing power. “It’s our Statue of Liberty,” I’m told, affectionately referring to this 5.5 meter (18 feet) tall statue that helped the Marktplatz square receive UNESCO’s recognition as one of the world’s oldest places symbolizing freedom.

Built at the same time across the square is the Town Hall. Its Gothic style is impressive, but what I found more impressive is the restaurant and wine cellar underneath the town hall. It is the size of seven football fields, the largest in Germany, and is larger than the town hall above. (“The wine cellar is never far from the politicians,” one man tells me inside.) While much of Bremen was destroyed by bombing in WWII, the town hall survived, in part because of the heroics of watchmen who literally carried fallen bombs outside of the building.

Another area surprisingly preserved and restored after WWII is a short walk away from the Marktplatz, toward the Weser River, in the Schnoor district. The name derives from the German word for string, as though the closely-built houses here are strung together likes pearls on a string. The area is charming, if small, and features a number of local artists. Built in the 13th century, the inhabitants of Schnoor were mostly river fishermen, who purposely wanted small houses because the property tax rate was equivalent to the size of one’s home.

One of my favorite stories to be found in Bremen, however, is at a small museum in the inner town: Museum im Roselius-Haus. Ludwig Roselius bought this house and turned it into a museum, as he was a great lover of the arts. But his fortune was built from sadness: his father had been a coffee merchant, and died at the age of 51 from “too much coffee,” as the doctors decreed. Roselius was determined to find a “safer” way to drink coffee, and developed a process of separating the caffeine from the coffee bean or, decaf coffee. Roselius’ invention became so wildly successful that at one time he held the sole contract of decaf coffee to 51 countries in the early 20th century. The museum that stands here today is a bit disappointing: it offers no relics of this coffee adventure, but rather is a collection of art that Roselius amassed. You can simply walk along Bottcherstrabe street to get a sense of the buildings that Roselius helped develop with his de-jittering fortune.

It’s one more tale in a city seemingly inspired by stories.

There’s a German/Italian man sitting next to me on the first part of this trip, from Paris to Frankfurt. He works for an American company in Frankfurt. He asks me about a topic he’s been reading about lately: the health care debate in America. “You mean, if you lose your job, you would lose your health insurance also?” he asks, befuddled by the idea.

This isn’t the case in most European countries, he explains, as health care is a public system, not private one as in the United States. We don’t really quite share which system we each may think is better: avoiding topics of politics, sex and religion seems appropriate on train rides also. But what he does offer is interesting, a perspective that I hadn’t considered: “The European system really was ingrained in our culture because of the devastation of the World Wars. There was so much instability, and fear, that people needed systems of great safety nets. And we got them.”

America, in his opinion, hadn’t experienced such devastation, and “maybe this financial crisis, as bad as it is, isn’t THAT great. Maybe it made the most affected people realize the need for more protections, but maybe it didn’t affect enough people to make the overall public demand a new safety net like health care protections?”

Maybe the Great Recession isn’t great enough to realize the need for a new safety net?

Is the glass half-empty, or half-full?

She began performing professionally ten years ago, at the age of 10, after her mother realized that Lunga possessed the same talent as her great-grandmother, who also performed as a contortionist in South Africa. “It’s a gift from God,” her mother says, getting emotional, before quickly adding that while the gift does seem to run in the family, “I never thought to try it myself; I fear I’d break myself.”

Two troupes from China are the final acts to each show, and one, from the Cirque de Wuqiao takes first prize with their acrobatic feats.

Melaku Lissanu is the first Ethiopian to perform at Cirque de Demain, and he wows the audience with his reverse-juggling act. I ask him backstage what the white powder is on his dressing-room table, and he laughs that it is “important to keep my act going,” before pausing to explain that it is talcum powder.

Johan Wellton, a Swedish juggler, dates a contortionist. “I think it’s the only type of relationship I could make work,” he says. “Who else would understand the devotion to the odd things we circus performers must do to create our acts? Plus, it motivates me when I am practicing juggling for hours, and I can look up and see her dangling from the air in some crazy pose.”

Eike von Stuckenbrok, of Germany, competed with his mannequin act, a creative meditation on human contact set to Radiohead’s “Creep.” (Watch here.)

His father built the mannequin for the show. “Like everything, the performing life has good points and bad points. Often times performing is fun and challenging, but I don’t like when I get injured,” Stuckenbrock, 20, says before rattling off a list of recent injuries: a broken bone, torn ankle ligament, and injured back.

Stuckenbrok wins a bronze medal. One of the good points of his day.

A large number of the young performers are French themselves, as France has the most circus schools in the world, five-hundred, and the oldest circus school organizations. Why such a vibrant circus tradition?

“There’s a love of the arts that is special to French culture,” one spectator tells me before recalling that it was King Louis XIV who encouraged his citizens to “play for me.” “To be entertained and escape one’s worries is very French.”

It doesn’t hurt that French circus students are paid well, either. Circus students are entitled to the same 600 to 800 Euro monthly living stipend as all other students. “In England, I wouldn’t get this kind of support to be in circus school,” says Matthew, one of the French circus immigrants. “It would cost me 7,000 British pounds to attend circus school in England each year, and here in France, I am paid 600 Euros a month to go to a circus school.”

It’s not only a student crowd that is attracted to France’s circus culture. Sitting outside of the stage are a number of circus model collectors, who proudly display their collections. “It quickly starts to fill up parts of the house and the garage,” one collector of twenty-five years laughs.

It’s part of their culture that these French people wouldn’t imagine any differently.

Getting There: Take the number 8 metro to Liberte. Reserve tickets on-line at: www.cirquededemain.com

There’s no need to take many steps in Parisian winters. There’s stimulation to be had in most places you are.