A May 1 (today, 2023) flashback from 50 years ago (1973, OR how I learned about World May Day). Backpacking/hitch hiking from Paris to Madrid with a lady I met in Amsterdam. She needed to get to Madrid safely to stay with friends, and I needed to travel through Spain to travel to Morocco. Then, it was always easier for a male/female to hitch hike together. This trip takes several days. We had numerous rides along the way. A youth hostel stop in Biarritz, France worked out fine with our arrival in the early evening. The truck driver we rode with couldn't take us into city center. We had about a 1 mile walk to the youth hostel. We walked past a large city park full of police and armed military. Duh??? We discovered later that several bombs had exploded around the city that day and were connected to a far left group during May Day celebrations. This is when I first learned about International Workers Day. Our Labor Day. May Day was first celebrated circa 1889. We stayed in Biarritz for 2 days and found other rides
that took us to the Madrid area. I hadn't planned to stay in Madrid, but stayed 3 days for locally guided tours from those living in a large apartment. Side note: The lady I hitched with was from Ann Arbor. She and her brother were going on a different path from Amsterdam, as he was headed to Greece. And the kicker is that some of the people at the apartment were a student group from Grand Rapids doing studies in Madrid. Several months later, and by chance, I saw 3 of them again at a campground in Marrakesh, Morocco. I violated my Visa time and stayed in fascinating Morocco for 4 months. An interesting world of travel was that period.
So, I learned about what May Day is for many countries; and I learned about how small the world is at times. The lady I traveled with on this part of the journey and the students in the apartment were all about an hour drive from where we all lived in Michigan.
There, that's my story of learning, with a few extras.
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Good evening, Derf