Oh those weekends... sitting in the van driving up North! It is always worth it. Being out in nature windsurfing, eating, relaxing calms you down and brings you back to the important things in life. I cannot imagine living without that sport. Windsurfing challenges me every time. You overvome your fear every session and it shows you that you are free - free ...well, and than G20 is knocking on your door! Just like a visit of your troublesome friends and family, it comes in full-speed and non-inviteds giving a big demolition party in your flat drinking your beer sleeping on your floor and puking all over your bathroom.
Like a good proper party, it started ok with some nice and artistic demonstrations: "1000 Gestalten", #liebertanzichalsG20 (better dancing than G20 - techno rave), etc. Wednesday evening was fun: dancing through the streets of Hamburg listening to electronic music demonstrating against G20. Some tensions were already visible between the law enforcement and blockG20-protesters the days before G20 and on Thursday evening it escalated. I went to the demonstration "welcome to hell", which after a nice afternoon turned into the first big fight between the police and protesters. So crazy how the good vibes of Wednesday`s party rave turned into that cruelity: St. Pauli, Schanze, Altona and Eimsbüttel were scenes of riots for three days afterwards. The G20 week ended up in a cat-and-mouse-game between the police and rioting people. I do not like violence at all, but I can understand peaceful civil disobedience in certain ways and I absolutely encourage everybody to excercice its right of free speach and opinion in a peaceful manner. And G20 .... well, two well-known fellows decided to skip the climate discussion and I was irritated that the African Union, NEPAD and South Africa, but no other african nation participated at the event even though the development of the african continent was a part of the negotiation. In the end, we also skipped the final weekend spending some time at home mountainbiking and relaxing.
