Today is "Christihimmelfahrt" in Germany – in English, Ascension Day.
A day that I can only assume is, in other countries of the Christian world, a solemn and important religious holiday, in Germany somehow has morphed into... "Männertag" ("Men's Day").
And what do men want to do, apparently, on a day devoted to them?
Drink, of course!
The standard sight on Männertag is a group of men wandering through the countryside, pulling a child's wagon repurposed as a conveyance for all the beer they've brought along, and getting roaringly drunk. Germany doesn't even have a Father's Day – it all gets folded into this, "Men's Day."
Today around 11 a.m., I was walking to the office (despite it being a public holiday, because the freelancer never sleeps...though the freelancer may, I admit, sleep in) and passed one of those old Berliner dive bars that's managed to keep a foothold here despite the terrifying pace of gentrification in my neighborhood.
Being an old Berliner dive bar, and today being Männertag, it was packed with people drinking and singing at the top of their lungs the song "Viva Colonia," the city of Cologne's anthem of drinking and good times; I associate the song with the Carnival season and my time living in the Rhineland area, but apparently anyone in Germany can sing it when they're drinking. (Sample lyrics: "We love our dear God and we're always thirsty!")
Got to the office and laughed with my French colleagues about Männertag; one of them said, Oh, so that's why this morning I saw an otherwise normal-looking guy standing around on the street with a beer in the middle of the morning.
