After dinner on Friday night, I had a nice relaxing, yet entertaining movie night with my host sisters at home. We were treated to yummy chocolate cookies that Josefine baked for us and also snacked on potato chips, and grapes! Upon Josefine’s request, we first watched Paul, a movie with a lot of famous American actors that i had not heard of which was pretty random, but entertaining nonetheless! During the previews, we saw a preview for Bridesmaids, and i joked that I needed to watch that movie again. Luckily, Josefine has that one too, so we watched it next! Ahhh, such a good film! As the movie ended I was pretty ready for bed and to rest for the day ahead.
On Saturday morning, I got to sleep in a little bit and began to lay out my plans for the day. Since Wednesday, Copenhagen had been graced with “Pride Square” (i.e. the square located in front of City Hall) , which had been sporting booths and information about the upcoming weekend events. Around 11, I met up with Caroline and we rode into the city together and logically headed straight to the square, only to discover this location was not actually on the parade route. This allowed us to explore a little bit on the other side of the Vesterport station in the Vesterbro neighborhood. Vesterbro is an up-and-coming area in central Copenhagen with lots of interesting cafes and restaurants. We decided to view the parade from Vesterbros Torv, where a street food festival was simultaneously taking place. After a little wait and the formation of a large, slightly intoxicated crowd around us, the parade began.
Some interesting observations about the parade:
– ALL of the spectators were drinking, whether it be from beer cans, champagne or wine bottles. Public drinking is legal in Denmark and is strongly encouraged!
– There aren’t any barricades set up along the parade route, so inevitably, the crowd did not stay on the sidewalk and many people joined and left the parade as they chose.
– Everyone in the parade was drinking as well. Many had beer or glasses of champagne, which may or may not have been made of plastic.
– The organizations in the parade included many of Denmark’s political parties and representatives for the US Embassy.
-The crowd was not extremely provocatively dressed, but it was also rainy and cold, so this may have been a determining factor.
Some fun floats from the parade, including the best costume (i.e. shuttlecocks from a gay sports club)!
After the parade, Caroline and I wandered around for a little while before we came across a Turkish buffet restaurant where we decided to eat a late lunch. It was a delicious and filling meal and the restaurant was a warm and cozy environment. Money well spent! After warming up for a while, we walked back, through the rain to Pride Square and watched a live concert for a few hours.The music was pretty alternative, but entertaining and our favorite was the Danish singer Basim.who was on the Danish X-Factor. When we got a little tired of the rain, and the music, we picked up some yummy chocolate from a 7-Eleven (which are actually Really nice here!) and headed to the Studenterhuset. there we listened to live music, drank some beer and repeatedly became too shy to “meet the Danes”. In our defense, many of them were older or were coupled off. But, we made it our goal to try and strike up a conversation with them next time. After meeting up with a few of our friends, and getting soaked by a massive rainstorm, we decided it was a sign to head home for the night! On our way out of the city, we briefly watched the Saturday night firework show from outside Tivoli. Overall, the day was fabulous and it was powerful to see the joy of the Pride celebration spanning continents and languages as it ought to!
My Turkish meal and the wonderful atmosphere of Copenhagen’s Pride Square!
-William 🙂
The Copenhagen Chronicles 