Welcome to the 21st century Berlin. No Nazis, no wall, no communists, barely anything that backs up the American stereotype of ‘those scary Germans’ as some of my friends call them. About every other year my family flies across the Atlantic to live in the city for six weeks as my dad heads an exchange program for JMU. Living in one area for so long inhibits us from being tourists (thank goodness, I would hate to think of myself as one), and gives us plenty of time to explore the entire city.
In our adventures this past week, we stumbled upon the annual Christopher Street Day festival. Which is, in plain English, an enormous parade of gays and lesbians dancing on rainbow floats that are blasting techno music in crowd of thousands of people who are all undoubtedly drunk looking for a good time. Phew. Now I, being fairly darn liberal am completely fine with gays and lesbians, and naturally had a great time. If you’re someone who would be freaked out by a 200-pound man lathered in make-up wearing a purple ball gown and Marie Antoinette wig, this is not the place for you.
It was a bit of a surprise to be walking down the street, turn the corner and BAM see a mob of several hundred thousand people. Christopher Street Day (CSD for short) is Berlin’s largest gay pride parade, with political tie ins. Many German political figures give attend and give speeches to rally support. But my feeling is, hardly anyone who was there cared to hear some stuffy politician make promises for equality. Those 500,000 people wanted to show the world what they’re made of, and prove that they are 150% happy being the way they are. And who is the government to stop them from doing otherwise?
The parade route ended in the Tiergarten, Berlin’s biggest park. Straße des 17 Juni (17 of June street) was lined with food and drink stalls, selling cocktails, and the always-German sausages. At the end of the promenade was a stage where artists like ‘Boy Banned’ performed. One by one floats overflowing with dancing people drove down the street moving inches at a time. After patiently crawling to their final destination, the parade mobiles emptied their passengers into the throngs of people and the real party began.
Sadly I was not there long enough to enjoy all the festivities. But I was there long enough to realize that if you’re going to live in a big city, you have to be comfortable with the extraordinary. Which were, in this case, some crazy transvestites.
You can read more about Ehrenpreis adventure here.
