Well, it's that time of the year again: Carnival. And people in many parts of Germany, mainly Catholic areas, are letting themselves go ahead of Lent -- the traditional period of fasting and prayer. In western German cities like Aachen, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Mainz hundreds of thousands of revellers are today celebrating Shrove Monday -- what they call here in Germany Rose Monday -- which they see as the high point of Carnival.