1 Mai

So, today was a holiday, Labor Day, and also a great time for protesting.  So much so that the US Embassy emailed me a warning about it.  Here is an article about it. While protests are common on May 1 -- and normally pretty peaceful -- that was not the case today.  Apparently a lot of people were arrested and also tear gas was used.

Which is to say, I decided that I would stay close to home and do laundry.  Which didn't 100% go off without a hitch, but basically was fine.  Someone else had an issue, though, and I ended spending awhile talking to the owner of the place -- he warned me about people's possessions being stolen in a considerable amount of detail. 

After that, to Cafe Oberkampf, which is both close to my place and highly recommended in guidebooks.  Rightly so. I ordered banana bread.  Look at that: beautifully grilled, with butter and everything.  

I then decided to go try a new bakery.  There is one that I've walked past a few times that, without fail, has a line out the door.  It's not as close, but seemed worth a go. Then I got there and you could hear people chanting through a loud speaker and I realized that I was not walking away from the protests.  It was fine, but it did make me cut my walk a bit short.  Got bread that was still warm from the oven, though.  

The official flower of May Day is a bunch of Lily of the Valley.  There are little bunches available lots of places and I was planning to grab one when I decided discretion was the better part of valor and I should turn around (I also opted not to take a photo as the shouting was definitely getting closer). The grocery closer to me had a sad, sad collection of flowers (which still smelled lovely, at least).  But it is neat to see so many people carrying them around: they are in little conical vases, for the most part.