Marché aux Oignons - Bern

I took the train to Bern after school today to see the onion market. It is an annual tradition that has been happening in Bern since the middle ages. It started today at 5:00am, and when I arrived at 5:00pm it was still in full swing!
This is a picture of the station in Bern completely decorated for Christmas! Already! If you look closely you might see confetti dotting the ground. That was my first clue as to what was to come...

 He is the street where the festival took place. I say street, but really every street in the city was lined by tents and tables, selling goods of all kinds. Of course there were onions in all forms: hanging bunches, onion crows with dried flowers, dolls made of onions, onion cakes, necklaces, etc. There were also candies, clothing, heated wine, music, sausages, games, and more!

Below is the manifestation of a funny tradition. Everyone buys packets of confetti and throws it at each other! The private and polite Swiss throwing annoying paper pieces at strangers in the street?!? What is this?!? Just walking around I would frequently get a face full of this stuff, and managed to shake off a pile before boarding my train back to Fribourg. You can see in the picture that I am also porting two strands of beads. They are actually plastic-wrapped candies! I think they are lemon and mint based on my limited understanding of Swiss German, but I have not actually tried them yet. They had every color of the rainbow in all different flavors! On the train you could immediately tell who had been to the festival because they were covered in confetti and wearing a strand of candies or occasionally a strand of onions!

One thing that I find interesting about Switzerland is that there is mistletoe everywhere! There was a time when I thought mistletoe was a mythical plant! Not only have I seen bunches and bunches of this stuff all over trees, but they sold it at the onion festival in bundles like in the pictures bellow. Now I know why people always greet each other with kisses!