It is an ongoing happy coincidence that many of our short trips happen to land on remarkable events in the places we chose to visit. Quite unexpectedly and quite unplanned, we were always there at the right place and at the right time (or weekend). A few weeks back in Provence, France for example, we were at the town of Arles where they held their heritage costume festival. More recently, Andy was in Amsterdam for a week for work when I joined him for the weekend, only to find that the town was awash in pink as they were getting ready for their
Gay Pride Festival. That explains why the cheapest accommodation we could find was double the usual price at
€160 a night!
The festival was held on Saturday, 6 August and were told to expect a Canal Parade in the afternoon and street parties that run deep into the night. We were excited about this and made sure we had our fill of their Dutch frites (fries with sauce - more typically creamy mayo) before finding a bridge with a good view to watch the parade. As we strolled along the streets, we were constantly amused to see how the Amsterdammers and tourists have wholeheartedly embraced this festival in their own way. Shops sold pink feathered boas (scarves) and Elton John looking sunglasses. We even spotted a guy riding a pink motorcycle buggy decorated with helium balloons. He was sporting a pink hairband and hugging a blow-up giant penis... yes, you read that right.
Cruising down the high street at 10km/hr, proud in pink.
We also found the stage that was being set up at the main square for the night party and discovered a couple of entertainers dressed in leather gear and doing the boogie for a small, delighted audience.
Ooh. Don't go too low there.
By the time the parade started at 2pm, a large crowd had gathered along the canals and bridge. Many were on their own private boats. Luckily, after a little walking around we found a sweet spot on a bridge overlooking the length of the canal. We were just in time for one of the first floats to arrive. It was a boat featuring a ginormous penis that deflates as the boat sailed under the bridge, and once across immediately inflates, ejecting a cloud of red confetti. It was pure gold.
Penis float ejecting confetti. Love it!
Andy, happy under a cloud of red confetti.
Me, a happy festival reveler.
One after another, floats cruised down the canal. We laughed out loud at what unfolded. Each float sported their own theme and I don't think there was a gay stereotype that wasn't explored and exploited. There were the hard hat construction workers, police force, pirates, drag queens and even superheroes! It was happy chaos on the boats as they danced to their theme music and jazzed up their audience. Many even had their own dance groove as they sailed along.
Hard hat construction workers, wearing their national Dutch orange.
Assorted characters on board ship.
My personal favourite were the pink gay pirates. Brandishing pink swords, skull pirate hats and black underpants. As they passed under the bridge, their ship deflated and once over their sails went up again. It was hilarious fun.
Gay pirate ship.
The crowd cheering the boats on.
Here comes the superheroes.
The police force.
Drags with big hair.
The swinging sixties.
Hmm not too sure what they represented! But they were funny.
Majestic Brazilians.
The man-angels.
A cool looking tower thing... of some sort.
The crowd was almost as fun to watch as the main spectacle as many were dancing on their little boats. There was also another side to this occasion, a charitable one. Little donation boats came along with their crew holding out long sticks with a condom net attached. As they passed along, people threw coins into their nets in support of the AIDs foundation.
Supporting AIDS boats, using condom nets to collect donations from the spectators.
The weather that day was a mixed bag of slight rain and sunshine. It didn't stop the parade and definitely didn't hold back the crowds. Instead, umbrellas shot up and the party carried on!
Spectators were hanging off lamp poles, climbing bridges and sitting on window sills. Basically anywhere that could give them a good view of the canal! I was standing on tip toes as I tried to look over the shoulder of the person in front of me. Thankfully, I had a fairly good view of the parade.
When night fell, the street party turned on full blast. We had a bit of a nap in the hotel room before heading out to check out the night party. There were hundreds of party revelers on the road and in the lanes where most of the action was happening, there was almost a standstill of people at a bottleneck. It was interesting to checkout the party at Amsterdam as each street had a different type of community in celebration. We probably wandered around for an hour, but didn't stay as we were a little adverse to wading through loads of trash and garbage littered on the street.
A street party.
A couple of amazingly dressed... males.
Andy and I.
Crowds around the stage blasting music.
Surprisingly, we expected more from this party. Thought there might be performers or entertainers, but there weren't. There were just plenty of flashing lights and music! So we went to look for some dinner instead.
As we were walking home, we chanced upon the 3 drags who we first noticed in the street party before. This time, instead of chatting up a party-goer, they were trying to cross the street! It was such a perfect cap to the day as it was such a funny and surreal sight to watch these 3 men in matching white dresses, stockings and massive wigs at a traffic light. They eventually crossed the road, took off their wigs and jumped in a taxi. Hilarious.
The Amsterdammers sure know how to party. The Gay Pride Festival is a celebration of being gay and proud of it. The Amsterdammers are certainly proud of their freedom of expression, love humour and hey, they don't need a better reason to hold a party!
