Friday 1st June

After a long day, we’ve finally made it to Rostock! An early start saw us at Glasgow airport to meet the rest of the campaigners at seven am, but before too long we were on the flight and bound for Germany. Ten campaigners from SCIAF, Jubilee Scotland and Oxfam have all come together to attend the G8 rally in Rostock in advance of the G8 summit itself, to pass on the baton of Gleneagles and the messages of Scotland’s anti-poverty campaigners.

We arrived at Berlin’s super-modern train station to find that a whole group of campaigners from all over the world had begun to assemble for the journey through sprawling countryside to Rostock. The carriages were full of people singing, chatting and excited about tomorrow’s big event. Even the five burly German policemen who joined our carriage a few stops before Rostock seemed to find the atmosphere electric!

Arriving at Rostock in the evening we left our bags, banners and Scotland flags at the hotel and got together to discuss our plans for the next day over a cold German bier. I’m really excited about tomorrow- up to seventy thousand campaigners are expected at the rally. And everyone we’ve met so far has been really happy that Scotland has come to Germany to hold leaders to account for the promises they made at Gleneagles in 2005. It sounds like the day should be peaceful, fun and ringing with voices raised against the G8 dragging its heels on fighting poverty.

Time for bed now though, so I’ll update you tomorrow on how it goes- Gute Nacht!

Lexi Barnett
1st June 2007