alle auf die Strasse

I am in Kreuzberg, middle of Berlin, middle of Germany, middle of Europe. Today is 1st of May: May Day, alle auf die Strasse! Everyone out on the streets. People are taking it literally. Thousands upon thousands of revellers, protestors, picnickers, cyclists, bands, seven thousand police officers standing in the sun, every street is lined with little stalls where a Turkish family barbecue koefte as fast as they can, or two friends have bought a slab of beer and trucked it down on a sack truck. People are dancing. People are chatting. People are playing boules by the riverbank. It’s like Woodford only many times larger and everyone wearing black. We just walked under a kilometre-long Mauerstrecke, where the old Wall was, lined with almost a hundred cherry trees in pink blossom. A girl walked by with her hair dyed the exact same colour and let me take a picture. You can buy a beer for a Euro and even the trees are dancing. Alle auf!