Here We Go Again

Today is the first of May and my first full day back in Berlin. May Day is of course the international day of the worker when the socialists remember the call to unify themselves in revolution against the establishment. The establishment celebrates May Day by holding hands behind plastic shields to make sure the socialists are properly anti-social within their carefully established space. In Berlin these marches are countermarched by the Neo-Nazis, who celebrate May Day here by dressing in black, and by throwing rocks at the socialists and the establishment. The counter-marchers are then counter-counter-marched by others who just want everybody to get along–especially if they can get a good drink while doing it. Soccer is not the national pass-time of the Germans, protesting is. Most of the citizens take in the road blocks and the transit stoppages stoically as if it were just another change in the weather.

I plan to celebrate May Day by sleeping off what is left of my jet lag quietly in my room. My appetite for taking in civil unrest from close range has never developed to the point where I have felt like I need to take in civil unrest from close range. I wonder what the soccer score is?