May Day in Germany

Today I experienced one of the quirkiest German Holidays. The festivities started last night, as all the clubs stay open all night long. It is called Tanz in den Mai, which means "Dance into May", the idea is that you dance all night until it becomes May. 

As we all walked back to our houses at like 5 in the morning, we saw a number of guys carrying these huge trees on their shoulders with ribbons attached to the branches. Then a little later we saw some guys planting these trees in the front yards of these random houses in the earliest hours of the morning. We soon learned that this is a common tradition that has been going on for hundreds of years in Germany. On the first of May, it is customary for a guy to plant a tree in the front yard of a girl he likes. The tree must be exactly as tall as whatever floor of the house she lives in. This way, when the girl wakes up she simply peers outside her window to see if her crush has paid her a visit. We saw some guys planting trees for girls who lived on like the 3rd floor, in which case they had to have a ton of people helping them! 

Some of the guys told us that if there is a girl you really don't like, because you think she is a slut, then you plant a tree in her yard and hang sausages on it. Each sausage represents a guy the girl has had sex with, so you hang as many sausages as guys you think she did. Grossss!! 

Luckily we saw no hanging sausages anywhere, so Germany is keeping classy as far as we know! lol

My host sister told me that since last year was leap year, girls had to plant trees with ribbons for the guys they liked, so every 4 years the tradition switches! 

I got a few pics of some decorated trees, unfortunately none from last night though since I did not have my camera on me, but take a look!