During the afternoon there is a large street fair where they set up stages with bands playing everything from hip-hop to punk and people drinks copious amounts of beer till they get exhausted and retire to one of the many parks to relax.
Late in the evening when everyone is completely out of their mind and on their second wind, the riots starts! Families and go back to their apartments and all that's left is angry locals, gutter punks, journalists, and a few stray NYU students. At this point several hundred cops in full riot gear carrying tear gas super-soakers flood the area. They carry little zip-ties to quickly hand cuff kids.
The rest of the night involves people setting things like trash cans on fire, throwing bottles at cops, and screaming anarchist slogans against the capitalist establishment. The cops rush the crowd, grab a few kids, throwing them to the ground and zip-tying their hands, the crowd retreats and the cops ease up. Rinse, wash, repeat. This all happened a million times throughout the night. My friends and I were way at the front, and one of us even got hurt a little.
Having recovered from Thursday's festivities, I had a delightful lazy Sunday. My friend Sam and a Minnesotan yoga teacher we know both had birthdays recently so we celebrated by going to Mauer Park. The park is in an über-hip neighborhood and everyone looked like they should be in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We drank champagne and wine and smoked hookah, while some kids in our group played guitar.
The slideshow contains pictues from my recent day trip to Dresden.
1 comment:
You are too cool for school, Anita. We can't wait to see you and have named the room where you'll be sleeping the "Anita" room.
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