In the afternoon of April the 30th the first members of the Counter Entropy team arrived in a garden, meeting to saw of a couple of birch branches. These knots should serve later as may trees, but this will be explained in the following.
After reusing parts of the former soccer stadion “Tivoli” of the soccer club “Alemannia Aachen”, they got acquainted with other cultural aspects of Aachen’s regional lifestyle.

In the night from 30th of April to 1st of May putting branches or whole trees in front of a girl’s house is customary.  The act performed by bachelors includes the decorating of the trees by long and flattering ribands. This custom goes back to the medieval  tradition, which was put into practice throughout the country. Today, the Rhine region and South Germany are the only remaining places, which celebrate the so-called “Maynight”.
Then, the tradition took place at Walpurgis night, the first full moon night in the year after the spring equinox. But in the late Middle Ages carrying out the Maynight on 30th of April became more usual.
The tradition served as a guarantee of getting the bachelors married. So the maytree did have the function of a marriage proposal. Today the trees’ meaning has changed: they reveal a person’s love or deep affection for the chosen person. So the boys form groups and help each other in putting the trees in front of the flats.
The members of the Counter Entropy team decorated the trees with black and orange colored ribands, with the Counter Entropy logo on such, in order to arrange them all over the city. When our people were seen, they were directly asked excited about the reason for carrying around the Solar Decathlon trees. The observers where obviously amused by watching the team tieing the branches to street lamps or similar spots. But only after finishing the decorating job, the real celebration could begin.