Unity Day in Germany

Standing at the door from the kitchen onto my deck, today you have this view...
On my west deck looking north you enjoy these colours...
On my deck looking south you have this treat.... if only it were warm so I could sit out...

Happy Unity Day to all.... this is a recent holiday in the rather recently re-united Federal Repubilc of Germany - 18 years old now. What do many Germans do on this holiday? Last night the youth were getting drunk; lots of beer, vodka, and Jägermeister drinking going on in the trams late last night. I was also at a party - with plenty of excellent cocktails, so I was in bed at 1:30 am. today.
What are we all doing today? Many are taking trips with the extended weekend. Some are simply resting and catching up on things around the house (there I am), and a few will go to some memorial worship services commemorating German Unity.
How sad it is that this new unity seems to go so unnoticed. Many have forgotten what cold-war Europe was like, what life in the GDR was really like. Please see the film "The Life of Others" ("Das Leben der Anderen") for an interesting study of the systematic surveillance of everyone in that society.
Or maybe unity has become more a romantic notion of something that is not achievable or perhaps not even desireable. Germany is, after all, so full of regional dialects, cultural variations, etc., that someone in Freiburg im Breisgau probably has more in common with someone from Zürich than with someone from Hamburg.

What am I doing today? I am drinking tea, eating my scones I just baked myself, listening to music, going to a music instrument museum this afternoon, doing some translating, and meeting a friend this evening at an Irish pub for dinner and beer from the island. I may make it to an intercultural festival in the city centre. And I may sit out on my deck here on the fourth floor and enjoy the view - now you can enjoy it with me!