The ugly side to the NATO Summit

The good news is that we were able to move around again when it was all over. I slept better without all those helicopters overhead too.

We were running out of drinks thanks to the fact I couldn't go to Kehl, Germany for a couple of weeks. Yes, drinks are available in France but quality, price and for planet-protection reasons (recycled bottles), I get ours' mostly in Germany. I also buy toilet paper, recycled, cheaper and that I didn't notice until yesterday but let's stick to the subject...

So the drinks expedition (sans toilet paper) commenced. Let's just say the drive there looked slightly different than last time.

The rioters luckily stayed in the Port du Rhin (Rhine bank) area. This is not the best area of Strasbourg to begin with, so the last thing they needed was several thousand rioters arriving to protest on their door step.

Here is a good video from Sky News. Very surprising as Sky News is sort of the British version of Fox. Since no one can tell me why my links don't work, you'll probably have to copy and paste it. I understand this is better to avoid spyware anyway...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Anti-Nato-Protesters-In-Strasbourg-Set-Buildings-Alight/Video/200904115255726?lpos=video_Article_Related_Content_Region_1&lid=VIDEO_15255726_Anti-Nato_Protesters_In_Strasbourg_Set_Buildings_Alight

Now the press reports were a bit confused. Three buildings were burned down; Customs, the Ibis hotel and the tourist information building. The latter was quite big and in the middle of an intersection. It also had a pharmacy and a bank machine. The customs building was pretty much unused and small, set off to the side. The press showed the tourist infomation building burning and said it was the Customs house. They also thought only two buildings were burned, instead of the three reported. I can see how they made this mistake as the burning tourist information building was much more visable and they probably couldn't get past the protesters to even see that there was a thrid being destroyed.

I got confused because when I saw the images in T.V., they had a very distinctive church in the background. I knew then it wasn't customs as you can't see the church from there. It was kind of weird seeing a place you know well in such different circumstances. This is near the Parc des Deux Rives, where the bridge they show in the video above was filmed.

Now, I'm not exactly a gifted photographer to start with, and my camera is not exactly high tech either. The fact that these were taken while driving my car should be noted. I'm happy you can even see anything considering all of the above. By the way, I was very careful and did not hold traffic up. Still annoyed the guy behind me...

The first I saw was the Ibis hotel. This is a cheap hotel chain, sort of like Motel 8's over here. The inside, I understand, is gutted.





Almost across the street, in the middle of the intersection is the Tourist Information building, what the press thought was the Custom's House.





This is the back of it, which was two stories;



Because the Custom's House is set back from the road, it was harder to get a photo of it. It's also all blocked off. Since it was a small building, and separate from the other two, it was easy to miss.





Thank goodness, no one was killed and believe no one injured due to the fire.