Group Mentality

"I'm hungry. Are you hungry?" I asked hungrily, scanning the tables that lined the road we were walking down. The tiny cloth-covered tables were packed with people, all of whom were viciously eviscerating croissants and mugs of beer.

"Yes," Erica said, and then had to shout as a group of Japanese tourists divided us, "YES".

It was one-thirty. My new friend and I had been walking for roughly two hours. This was because of my miscalculation -- I'd figured, "hey, the English Gardens is just a park... how large can a park be?" and had suggested that we walk through them from our apartment complex to the market in the center of the city, rather than take the subway. It was a beautiful day, and we didn't really have anything else to do, so naturally she'd agreed, probably assuming that the Gardens -- although they were gorgeous woods and all -- wouldn't be the four miles long they turned out to be.

By this point, being Americans unused to constant pavement-pounding, we had sore calves. Our feet tingled. And we were being constantly barraged by people, shoved to the side as one group after the next passed. The waves of tourists continued undaunted, like zombies, or a herd of chickens mingling on the floor of a hen factory. The Gardens had been nice, but now this was pandemonium.

"Sorry," I said, or rather yelled. "I didn't realize this would take so long. I made you take a really massive walk, I feel like such a --" I stopped, realizing where I was. I had been about to say "Nazi". "I feel like ... I feel like we're goose-stepping... like we're wearing all brown..."

"I know what you mean," she said. "Hey, what's that?"

I turned to look. 'That' was an even more-solidly packed knot of people than all the rest of the crowd, and this herd of people, gathered in front of the Glockenspiel with heads tilted upward, was not a roving herd. It was a stationary herd. At its front were banners with rainbows on them, booths, posters, and a woman shouting Germanically into a microphone. I couldn't make out what she was saying -- since it was a beautiful day, I assumed it was some kind of gay pride rally, or possibly a Happy Easter! march.

I looked over at Erica. "It looks nice! Should we stay?"

Her eyes were wide. "Um...." She had plainly realized. "I think it's an anti-American rally."

I turned to it, about to say "That's ridiculous!", and then I saw the writing in Arabic and the giant poster-cartoon of a man standing on a wooden block, a hood draped over his head, his hands outstretched and chained.

Dumbfounded, I went, "But Obama's in power now!", and then I realized that these people didn't seem to care, no matter how kind and friendly they looked with their rainbow banners and their megaphone in front of a giant cartoony clock. The woman was shouting in earnest, and there was quite a bit of support, or at least the crowd was comprised of interested, thinking faces.

We switched to our broken horrible German until we reached the market, just to be sure.