An Au Pair in Germany: May 1st and A Tree Raising Festival

May 1st

Today the town traditionally raises a tree or ‘baum’ to celebrate the beginning of May (and warmer weather).

I woke up surprisingly well this morning for going to be at 1:30 last night…it might have had something to do with the two munchkins banging on my door at 8:30, but who knows. I let them in and they wandered around touching things and asking for candy and I just sat back on the bed and gave them blank ‘I just woke up’ stares.

Around 11:30 we piled into two cars and went into town for the big May 1st festival. There is a very large bare tree trunk with wreaths on it that is the centerpiece of the festival. They have a tradition where they have to raise the tree up manually. It takes about 3 hours to do so and a bunch of local men. Everyone who is not helping raise the tree helps themselves to sausage, pommes, and beer.

The  ‘May’ tree must be prepared for thirty days prior to raising it. During that time the tree can be stolen by other nearby villages, and you do not want your tree stolen! Typically a bunch of young men stand 24 hour watch over the tree while other villages wait until the guys get very drunk, then try to steal it. It can then be bought back with money and beer.

There was a band that played and most everyone was wearing the traditional ‘tract’, which are just adorable. We left before the whole celebration played out because S’s mother and Elle couldn’t handle all of the excitement.

After we got back to the house it started raining cats and dogs! It’s a good thing we left when we did! We had some leftovers for lunch and then took a wonderful nap before the barbecue at J’s house.

The nap was so good that we fell asleep around 1:30 and the family didn’t wake up until about 5:30! We rushed out the door and made it there around 6:15. We were supposed to be at J’s house by 5 so we had to scramble to get out the door!

They have this adorable grill house in their backyard that looks tiny from the outside but we fit about 10 people in there tonight and we probably could have fit more. The inside was straight out of a romance novel. It had candles and animal fur draped over the benches and a fire in the center.

We had amazing food that included soup, fresh bread, asparagus salad, stick bread (so much fun! You take a ball of dough and roll it into a long strip, then wind it around a stick and bake it over the fire!) We drank prosecco with a hibiscus flower at the bottom that you eat!

I made J her first roasted marshmallow, but it was probably not the proper experience because Haribo doesn’t make their marshmallows as good as the ones I normally use.