We arrived in Amsterdam just in time for the start of Pride Week, which this city is very, very enthusiastic about. There were rainbow flags everywhere, including the U.S. Consulate building (but not the Turkish or Russian embassy buildings on the same street). U.S. Consulate decked out for Pride Week
The best part was the canal parade this past Saturday. It seemed like the whole city must have turned out. You can’t even see the water in most of my photos because there are so many people in front of us and across the canal.
There’s water in here… somewhere (Boat caption: “Don’t be a drag, just be a Queen.”)
We often couldn’t hear the music from a given float because there was so much music being played near us and on the floats before and after. There were something like 70 floats.Some of them had to be lowered or deflated to get past some of the canal bridges because they were so big.
The canal was lined with small personal boats two deep on each side, and people were standing and dancing in the boats.
I appreciated seeing major corporate representation on the floats (PWC, SalesForce, ING, others I wasn’t tall enough to see) as well as several government entities (police, firefighters), in addition to the GLBT activist and support groups.
I was also pleased to see the following restroom signs at the Amsterdam Museum, suggesting that Amsterdam does more than just throw a good party about equal rights once a year.Everyone gets a private little room with a door that goes from floor to ceiling – no see-through doors like the U.S.!
One comment
Nice pictures. Looks and sounds like quite a celebration.
Nice pictures. Looks and sounds like quite a celebration.