This week Stockholm showed itself from the queer and very proud side: It was Stockholm Pride. Plenty of activities during the week climaxed in the parade on Saturday noon. Somehow I expected a little more from it. It was not as colourful and loud as I thought, instead it seemed to be more about "see" and "being seen" of political parties, proud parents and all kinds of organisations. Maybe the impression of the flashy Christopher Street Day gave me a wrong idea, or this was simply the Swedish way of showing pride, a little bit more "lågom"... who knows. Still it was nice to watch.
All those proud gay people of course also found their way into the nightlife. My friend Amelie and me went to Trädgården. An interesting location under the motorway bridge, nicely illuminated with colourful flourescent tubes, chains of lights and flashy lit windows. The strong beat music of "Tilde" and the playful happy music of "Vivian Alive" was very good, the DJs surprised with an uncommon mix of music, like Nena, Liquido and Tom Petty. All the couches made the place surprisingly cosy. Right under the bridge, where something like a tribune was put, the nightowls could play Super Mario World. The game was projected to one of the pylons of the bridge. It was funny so see, how everyone was somehow participating in the game: whenever one of the contestants made Mario or Luigi fall down one of the many abysses, a genereal "oooooow" went through the crowd, which stared fascinated at the wall.
Mario and Luigi on the wall:
The magnetized crowd
Since Trädgården closes at 1am we continued to Debaser Slussen, somehow the place where we always end up. The music was nice like usual, but the people around us were a little bit too drunk...
However, the great things about summer in Stockholm is that you can have tons of fun for free: Trädgården is for free before 8pm and the drink prices are also decent. The uteservering of Debaser is also for free. And another location is F12 Terassen. Well the average age is rather young, but the music is good; before 10pm entrance for free as well. So even without any money and the agreement to stay sober for a few nights and drinking water instead, it is still possible to have a lot of fun :-)
