May 1st is celebrated in different ways around Germany. In bigger cities, May 1st is marked by demonstrations and parades organized by worker's unions. Where I live, people ride their bikes on a Maitour to a meadow or park and celebrate there.
I first met up with two friends from my town to bike over to a friend's house in Gütersloh, where we met other friends for breakfast and started celebrating the "Day of Work".
After a hearty breakfast and a few glasses of Weizen, we set off to meet some other friends in the middle of Gütersloh.
The troop is getting bigger...
After meeting up with yet another group, we left the city in a band of about 40 people. As you can imagine, this requires frequent stops to reorganize the group. In this picture you can see the wagon with some of the supplies for the tour.
Messing around at the Wappelbad, a park next to a river. Here we lounged, chilled and hung out with many other kids we know.
All in all, the "1. Mai" was a lot of fun. I still can't find a connection between the history and the tradition in this area, but there are some things you don't have to question.
4 comments:
I am surprised that Germany has the holiday of the communist party, May Day or International Worker's Day, as a national holiday.
The 1st of May is International Workers' Day and was started by representatives of the labor movement, not necessarily by Communists.
I don't know what you mean by "holiday of the communist party"--there are hundreds of Communist parties in the world. Which one do you mean and where do you see that it is their holiday?
Anonymous, Like the name says, it's an international holiday. Not only Germany is celebrating it, but most countries Europe's have this day as a holiday. You can see the full list at wikipedia 'Labor Day'.
Exactly right, Bek. Thanks for the backup. ;)
Post a Comment