Carnival: Asking where main parade route starts

💬 was here is the casual spoken short form of etwas "something". You'll hear was constantly in everyday speech, even in otherwise polite questions.

🇩🇪 This is the standard polite way to stop a stranger in the street. kurz reassures them you won't take much of their time, which makes people more willing to stop, even in a busy carnival crowd.

🇩🇪 Helau! is the carnival cry in Mainz, Düsseldorf and many other places, but in Cologne it's Alaaf!. Shouting the wrong one in Cologne or Düsseldorf will get you teased, since the two cities are friendly rivals.

💬 After der, the describing word ends in -e: der große Umzug. After ein it changes to ein großer Umzug.

💬 The verb anfangen "to start" splits in two: fängt goes early and an jumps to the very end. Same pattern: Wann fängt das Konzert an? "When does the concert start?"

💬 Umzug also means moving house. Context usually makes it clear, so Wir haben einen Umzug is about boxes, not floats.

💬 Zug normally means "train". At carnival time it's the everyday word for the parade, as in Rosenmontagszug "Rose Monday parade".

💬 am is an and dem squeezed together, and Germans almost always say it that way. Same pattern: am Bahnhof "at the station".