Today, May 1st, is a very important day in Austria! It is Austria's Labor Day, and there are many festivities throughout the country. The Bowling Green students celebrated Maifest by going to the events at the Freilichtmuseum. It is a tradition on May 1st to put a Maibaum, or May tree/May pole, in the ground. It took about 30 men in lederhosen 2 hours to get the giant tree all the way up! The tree looked to be about 70 feet tall, and had three wreaths circling around it. Once the tree was in the ground, people tried to climb up it, in order to get the prizes (pretzels in this case) that were hanging from the wreaths. The higher you can climb, the higher the honor! It was very fun for all of us to experience such an interesting Austrian tradition!
