1st of May

Well its possible that we were in the news, well not me of course, but my neighborhood. Not really my neighborhood either but the neighborhood next to mine. There were these guys you see, and they were dressed in black and wearing ski-masks and they decided to do what people dressed like this on May Day usually do; they scooped out the cobblestones from the street and sidewalk and started throwing them at a few of the 5000 police officers dressed in what they call riot gear. Anyway by the time I got there, around 10 p.m., things had quieted down and there was a block party where I live and we thought well the rioting is already over so why not go check out the area and see what is going on now.

It was a standoff. People all over the square, many of them having nothing to do with the rioters, just waiting for a fight. Waiting in the eerie darkness with no cars on the roads, a helicopter circling somewhere above, and several hundred police officers blocking off several of the streets. We finished our beer and went home. When we turned on the news the next morning, we learned that we had just been in the eye of the storm and that it got worse before it was all over. 200 were arrested. Most of the stores were still boarded up on Sunday.