After first explaining the odd German holiday of "Herrentag" yesterday to some slightly baffled French colleagues, then writing about it here, I dropped a line to my American friend Anton, just to say I'd been writing about Herrentag and thus also remembering the amusing bike ride he and I took outside of Berlin one Herrentag five years ago.
Anton called back and told me he'd had the same experience, trying to explain Herrentag to an Italian woman. They were on a walk in the park, Anton attempting to get across what Herrentag is about, when they came across a group of eight or so boisterously drunk German men, all pulling little carts full of beer, who immediately started hitting on his Italian friend ("Don't you have somewhere you have to be? We'll take care of her!") in a way that was mostly jovial but also exceedingly macho, and just a little over the line from friendly to aggressive...
And that, Anton said, demonstrated perfectly what he'd been trying to explain about Herrentag.
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