Maifeiertag - May Day

Heute ist Feiertag, aber nicht in Großbritannien. Wir müssen bis zum Montag warten. In Deutschland, Österreich, Teilen der Schweiz und vielen anderen Staaten ist der Maifeiertag ein gesetzlicher Feiertag.

There's a big difference between the May bank holiday on Monday in Britain where most large shops and some smaller ones remain open and the Maifeiertag in Germany today. The shops will not have opened in Germany today - Feiertage sind für Beschäftigte grundsätzlich arbeitsfrei - and there will have been no lorries on the move.

The origins of the May Day holiday are not easy to determine. Some sources refer to the seventeenth century but I have my doubts. Kalendarblatt suggests origins in the US in the nineteenth century and the German start coming in 1890 - 1.5.1890 Tag der Arbeit

May Day is still a popular time for protest marches and demonstrations. Reports from today include Zehntausende protestieren gegen Neonazi-Aufmärsche and Blockierer zwingen Neonazis zum Umdrehen. Unfortunately left and right both end up behaving violently toward the police. Demos gegen Neonazis - Steine gegen Polizisten gives more reportage and there's a video to watch.

iGoogle

iGoogle is a great way of keeping up to date with news and other information in German and you can set it as your home page.

Set up a Google account if you don't have one and go to iGoogle. Once you are signed in you can drag in whatever gadgets you want. Even better you can set the language to Deutsch and your location to Deutschland. If you are new to iGoogle it might be better to delay changing the language before you figure out how it works. You can also create other pages (sometimes referred to as tabs) so you can group the gadgets according to subject. I have Home, Nachrichten, Technik and Österreich on mine.

I have the Google News gadget on two pages. One is set for Deutschland and the other for Österreich.

Give it a try and if you are particularly proud of one of your pages you might like to share it with me.

News News News

One thing I want to do with this blog occasionally is pick up something in the headlines in Germany and make comment on it. Perhaps I'll copy a short extract so my readers can see if it interests them and I'll provide a link to the full piece.

How to keep up with the headlines? Turns out that's easy. Go to InfoLive - Das Nachrichten Portal You'll find the headlines from the main TV and radio stations. Not only that you'll find tabs for Magazines/Daily papers and much more.