It was just the beginning of a long and hectic day of crowds, protests and police. It took my German flatmate a few tries to fully explain the situation to me:

Contrary to popular belief in the US, neo-Nazis are not out-and-out banned in Germany. The far-right party here, the National Democratic Party, is legally entitled to demonstrate like any other political party, although they are not allowed to display swastikas or directly link themselves to Hitler’s Nazi regime. So, when they go to city hall and apply for a permit to have a demonstration march, city hall has to allow it. And legally, the police have to protect the demonstrators as they would those from any other group.

Naturally, no one else in town is too happy about this, but that’s how it has to be. The only solution is to stage such a massive protest that the police tell the Nazis to go home for their own safety. And that’s exactly what happened. All day along. Around the corner from my apartment.

Beginning at 10am, the anti-Nazi protesters started gathering at two locations along the neo-Nazi’s planned demonstration route. At the beginning, the police cleared them out of the way – without permits, they weren’t technically allowed to block the road. In a well-publicized incident, even Vice President of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, sat down in the street to protest – and he was gently removed, like all the others.

Twitter updates came in rapid succession: “Location A has been cleared out, everyone available proceed to Location B.”  But location B was unreachable due to police blockades. Finally, one location managed to get a permit, and people from all over town started pouring in. By noon, as my flatmate and I cautiously poked our heads around the corner to check on the mayhem, we were pleasantly surprised to find a giant, peaceful protest blocking the entire four-lane road.

Home made banners reading “Nazi’s Out” and “No Violence”  had been hastily scrawled on old bed sheets, and green balloons with the slogan “No Room for Nazis” bobbed in the breeze. A double row of barricades crossed the entire street, and behind them stood police, shoulder-to-shoulder in full riot gear. The message was clear: we could stand there and peacefully block the parade route, but nobody was getting through where they could start any real trouble.

The sign above his head displays the message: Due to protests and police blockades, there is no tram service at this time.

Fortunately the stone-throwing black-bloc protesters had disappeared somewhere else, and as the crowd grew throughout the next couple of hours the mood remained relaxed and sociable.

The balloon reads: No Room for Nazis

Around 2pm, the neo-Nazi demonstrators were still nowhere to be seen, and I headed back to my apartment for a while. I planned to take the train to another part of town, where each year there is a massive street festival with music, food, and enough people to jam every street within a 5 block radius. At about 4pm, I headed out the door with my camera, and was happy to see that the protests near my place seemed to have thinned without incident. I should have known better.

As I walked towards the train station, I suddenly came upon a new group of protesters, even larger than the one from that morning. They had reassembled and were blocking every side street leading up to the station, preventing the neo-Nazis from redirecting their march to get around the initial blockade. I managed to squeeze my way through the crowds, and the police guarding the station politely let passengers through. I bought a ticket and, seeing that I had 1o minutes to kill before my train arrived, headed back outside.

As I took the photo above, the police politely stood aside as I exited – and then, responding to a message on their walkie-talkies, closed off both entrances and refused to let anyone inside. The station, with it’s long staircases and front-and-back entrances, would be a strategic nightmare for them if the demonstrations got out of hand. I was stuck inside my own neighborhood. The trams had long since stopped running, the main train station was blocked off, and the other nearby train line had cut off service several stations south from me. I headed south by foot until I was out of the protest area and found a tram line that was still in service.

As I finally squeezed my way onto the packed tram half-an-hour later, a neighboring passenger managed to elbow enough room for himself to fish the ringing cell phone out of his pocket. He spoke briefly to his friend on the line, then announced to the entire car: “The Nazis gave up! They turned around and went home!”

View more images from this gallery or purchase image rights via my archive at Photoshelter:

May Day in Berlin -Images by Kristal Burtrum

After dragging my reluctant brain into the correct time zone, I ascertain that it is 9:00 am, and my friend is ringing with a last minute invitation to be a judge at the Berlin BBQ Championship. He has a free ticket, and if I want it, I have to be out the door in 20 minutes.

Quickly pulling myself together, I manage to organize clothing, bus route, and a pot of maté tea in record time. This is an offer for free barbecue, after all.

We meet up at the event, miraculously on time, and receive our complimentary t-shirts and event badges. Set on one of Berlin’s many semi-artificial beaches near the Spree river, the event is a maze of sun umbrellas, beach chairs, and grill teams. We have a couple of hours to kill before the judging begins, so we wander around a bit to see some of the prep work in action.

My promo shot for the artifical beach

The contestants ranged from teams of professional chefs…

… who managed to prepare gourmet delicacies using only a grill…

… to those with somewhat less technical proficiency.

The contest was divided into 5 courses: vegetarian, sausage, poultry, beef, and dessert. All foods had to be prepared using only a grill. During each round, the judges were randomly assigned to either be served at the contestant’s booth or to have a “to go” box delivered to them in the judging room.

After sampling the course, we rated the food on appearance, degree of cooking (i.e. charred, raw, or just right), taste, and how well the main dish and side dishes complimented each other. There was about an hour between each course, as the teams prepared the foods for the next round. (It also gave us a chance to make room for the next samples!)

By the end of the day, we were tanned, sand-dusted, and stuffed with gourmet delights (and a few not-so gourmet attempts as well.)

The luck of the draw resulted in the following samples for me:

My vegetarian course: grilled peppers stuffed with curreid couscous, accompanied by a slice of grilled sweet potato, decorated with a drizzle of balsamico glaze.

My sausage course: a sausage with a polenta patty, accompanied by grilled beet slices.

My friend’s sausage course: A main dish of a guitar-shaped Leberkäse (think really gourmet Spam), accompanied by three kinds of amazingly seasoned sausages and a delicious salsa.

My poultry course: Grilled duck filled with apricot-onion stuffing, served with hot and sour sauce.

My meat course. It wasn’t as exciting as my duck, but it was an amazingly tasty steak burger. By this point I was totally stuffed, and I still ate almost the whole thing.

My amazing dessert course: an apple tart accompanied by a small cream puff and a small apple-filled pastry… all baked on the grill.

One last image: I didn’t get to eat this, but I absolutely love the idea of grilled, bacon-wrapped plums. This has to be on the menu for me at some point in the future.

So, I’ll start at the beginning. Way back in November, I flew back to California to see my family for Thanksgiving. While I was there I hopped up to San Francisco for a few days to visit a friend. And while I was in San Francisco – in the fabulous, happening, bar-and-restaurant-filled Mission District – I had my first Mexican Food Experience in an entire year.

I managed to make it back to my table with a wobbling stack of three over-filled salsa containers and one precariously-balanced pickled Jalapeno, spilling only a minimal amount of salsa on my shoes in the process. Most people were polite enough not to stare, even after I whipped out my SLR camera with it’s zoom lens and started photographing my salsa as if it were a work of art. And really, isn’t it? Tangy-limey-hot-cilantro-y goodness dumped all over…

… two sizzling hot tacos filled with carne asada and carnitas, respectively. Smothered in cilantro and chopped onions and served in a warm corn tortilla… wow. I made pretty decent tacos in Germany, but there is really something extraordinary about tacos from a good taqueria that just can’t be replicated.

My friend looked at me from across the table at one point – I had a Jalapeno in one hand and a taco in the other, with one bite taken out of each, and what I imagine could only have been an expression of pure bliss on my face. “You look so happy right now,” he said.

And I was. Being a tourist in your own country lets you experience simultaneous novelty and nostalgia. It floods you with old memories, and at the same time makes ordinary activities exciting and new. It makes ordering food in your native language a special treat. And it makes you eat ridiculous things like this, just because you haven’t had a pickled Jalapeno in 12 months:

Yes. I did eat all but one of those peppers. And oh wow, do I need to figure out where to buy those in Berlin!