Thursday 2 May 2013

May Day


As some of you may know, the first of May is a holiday here in Belgium. I have no idea how it is for the rest of the world, so there, so I’m just saying ‘here in Belgium’.

For that occasion I was invited to meet up with some of my amazing friends who live a two-hour train ride away, and according to the size of Belgium, that’s considered ‘far away’.
I was asked to join them to go see the ‘
maypole’ and the entire festival that surrounds it. I was there a day earlier, yesterday I took the train after work, and I quickly found myself submerged in a whole new world, one that was considered normal for those incredible friends of mine. I found myself running around in a field of grass, being buried in said grass, eating leaves of flowers like some kind of primitive cave man, and more things to ‘get in touch with nature’. I loved it. Elvya Dulcimer, a talented young woman who is taking the music industry by storm, made me a very special friendship leaf, which I cherish a lot.































Today was even better, with a really big jumble sale where I found new shoes,
the ritual of the tree, complete with music, traditional folk dancing and more of that goodness.
The day proceeded with the most incredible inventors showing off their creations. There were people on stilts blowing enormous bubbles; there were elves on horses, and gigantic mechanical contraptions being driven by a man using bike pedals. There was a moving planetarium, and I saw building sized insects and a wooden camel, a metal phoenix,
a woman singing opera on a moving platform…
It was absolutely incredible. 


One of the performing groups in the parade: Medusa's world.

















As Elvya went home I had to wait an hour for my train, so there was this lovely woman who spent that time with me on a bench in the park. We feeded ducks and talked away, I missed my train eventually because we spent so much time at the park, so she accompanied me for yet another hour of talking until I stepped on my train at long last. It was good.

It was the first time I celebrated the May Day, and I liked it so so much.
I also didn’t want to go home; I left a piece of my soul there, with those strange people.

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