So, its been a pretty intense couple of weeks, although I can now say that I’ve had a åconcensus meeting in the middle of a riot, where every time someone opened the door wafts of tear gas came in and I’ve protested in the snow, two things I’ve definately not done before. Its been so amazing here, I’ve gotten to know so many really great people from lots of different countries. We’ve been getting acquainted with different ways of protesting, and liberal uses of tear gas, pepper spray and mass pre arrests. I had a very interesting moment with two danish activitst when I was trying to work out how all the various medics, people with megaphones and infoguards would all fit on a ‘wagon’ – I had until this point thought it was a pedal poweredsound system like we use in the UK on demos! After lots of laughing from my new danish friends I worked out it was actually a large truck, which they tend to use on protests here, a German friend later informed me they use them frequently in Germany too. I’m thinking pedal powered trucks may be the way forward!
For the last 2 days after an extremely busy week, with a slight ‘city under siege’ feeling, I’ve been relaxing and really enjoying just chilling out with lots of my UK friends. From riots to poetry readings to massage circles accompanied with lots of soya hot chocolate looking out on a beautiful snowy city its been the perfect first 2 weeks of our trip. Although somehow I feel like I’ve cheated, as instead of saying goodbye to everyone in the UK, we’ve brought them all along with us!
Grainne, xxx
18 Dec 2009