Work day

In many countries today May 1st is a bank holiday. In my country if I translate it, it's called the "day of work", isn't it funny a bank holiday named like this ? There is a possibility it comes from Chicago in the US. To make it short, workers obtained the 8 hours day of work after a big strike in 1886 (and has nothing to do with the labour day). 3 years later in France, in order to celebrate the universal exhibition and the century-old french revolution the socialist party decided to meet to demonstrate and to reduce the duration of a day work to 8 hours (48 hours a week, only sunday is not worked). May 1st, 1891 in north of France (this was the industrial part of the country with mines) demonstration was tragically ended by police with 9 dead people. Since then this date finds its roots traditionally as a fight of the european workers and became soon international when in 1920 Russia decided that this date will not be worked and will be the legal workers day. This example is followed by many countries. Today in France people still demonstrate a lot to warn the government that Unions are ready to start negociations to make work life in better conditions even if it has nothing more to do with the past centuries but we are at this point today thanks to people who fought for us and still do. Frankly speaking it's mostly about money that we talk about but season's opened. In ex-west-Germany we don't really pay attention to this date except that we don't go to work but in ex-east-Germany it has more to do with young socialists. Traditionaly they wear a red carnation flower when in France we offer lily in the valley to our families and people we love. This year May 1st is a Thursday and most of people deserted the city because if you take a day of holiday you can leave 4 days looking for the sun in Spain. I stayed because my friends came over for the week-end. The city is full of tourists and you can hear everywhere every language except german. Anyway we went out last night and I discovered with big surprise that round my corner the Pfefferwerk just reopened. It's been under work for months and it's newly lighted and looked of course beautiful. There it's a multicultural place and also a garden where you can share drinks. In the underground you find my beloved Bassy club where yesterday there was a 1920's party (pictures on the website). No demonstration today in the area (it's done far east of the city) so the centre looks empty and the museums are packed. Tomorrow for me is work day.