I must say when Amsterdam wants to party, it does it right!

This year, it was the first time I was in town for the Gay Pride, as I am usually hanging around Edinbugh this time of the year.

Here in the Dam, the 2 most important days of the year are Queensday and The Gay Pride. And what a show, both days.

The Gay Pride lasts the entire first weekend of August. The entire town dresses up in  pink showing off the multicolour flags, symbol of the worlwide gay community. There are more gay people in Amsterdam than everywhere in the world this weekend, the atmosphere is joyfull anf friendly, with street parties and concerts, people dancing, drag queens singing and the rest of the town involved and surrounded by such a great atmosphere.

The main event is the Boat Parade on the most important canal of the town, Prinsessgracht.

80 boats with the weirdest and funniest carachters of your imagination show themself to the entire world, dancing  for hours on the canals surrounded by people from everwhere who come from everywhere to watch them.

As for the Queensday, I always find funny to think at the face of someone who arrives in town just this day and doesn’t know of  the Gay Pride . They may think people of this town are all crazy and gay, they may think here people enjoy life from morning to night like if it’s always a great extraordinary weekend!

Well…it’s almost true, and in occasions like this people of Amsterdam can really show their best and teach the world how to have fun!

No discrimination, for one day love is really in the air around the Dam.

It’s amazing the way people can involve an entire town for their party, and how they manage to get so much attention on them to transfor this day to a almost national party.

Something like this  doesn’t happen anywhere in the world. The gay pride is usually a parade where  Gay people around the world show off their rights, their struggles and themselves, being watched by the rest  of the people who don’t really get involved in what they do. Well, the magic of Amsterdam is that the Gay pride is a party for everybody, even for the tourists.

This is one thing I am going to miss of Amsterdam so much: its happy tolerance and acceptance of all kind of human beings, the relaxing way this town lives with the diversity, making it a pride rather than something to be scared.

There was everybody this year at the parade:

from Santa Claus

to Capitain Hook

And the Oz compamy

 

The queen of england:

and the queen of The Netherlands

 

 

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