Madrid’s Pride Celebration Shows the Beauty of True Diversity

When a Spanish drag queen in 12-inch polka dotted platforms yells, “Baile!” you don’t really have any other choice.

You dance.

Apologies for the delay between this post and the last in this blog, but I believe in the power of anticipation as a tool of all forms of media, and so I have chose to employ it here.

Anticipation, and to clarify, and electric anticipation, is an apt description of Madrid in the days before its gay pride celebration that was held on July 3. This is the site of supposedly the largest gay pride celebration in Europe, and after witnessing how the Spaniards throw a party, I can see why.

Three to four in the afternoon is known as the Spanish morning hour, and most bars don’t open before midnight and close around 6 a.m. The walls of these establishments, however, are more symbolic than anything as patrons inevitably pour into the streets and don’t even think about stopping the party until at least 8 a.m. the following day.

Though I am still chained the nine-to-five sleep schedule and found myself awake and ready to hit the town at 8 a.m. on July 2 just as the locals might being thinking about getting some sleep, I, feeling inspired by the festivities and local customs, did not find my way back into a bed for any meaningful amount of rest until about 8 a.m. on July 4.

And as would be appropriate for the recounting of a gay pride tale, I have a story for every color of the rainbow.

Such red, white and green one completely naked parade walker had painted himself to represent the colors of the Iranian flag in protest of the countries prosecution of gay individuals.

Purple was the color of the Big Gulp sized sangrias I drank, pink was the three-foot tall wig one man skillfully sported.

But the sea of the micro-tales and curiosities that was Madrid’s pride, and truly, the amount of people at this event brings new meaning to the phrase “sea of people,” combine to form a living piece of art that reflects the ideology they each embrace: diversity.

Diversity is a word that has lost much of its meaning to me because its overuse as a buzzword in the U.S. amounting to little more than a superficial, half-hearted attempt at its implication if anything.

The gay community, especially, is both a victim of and victimizes the political lightning rod that is the word diversity in the States.

As those who advocate against equal rights for GLBT individuals refuse to acknowledge the similarities between their lives and the lives of those whom they campaign against, choosing instead to believe that there is something inherently different and therefore wrong with gay individuals, there are those who advocate for equal rights who strive to strip out the diversity of the GLBT community in order to make it seem less ‘controversial’ and therefore hopefully more readily acceptable to the rest of the country.

As gay individuals, to completely make up a word on the spot, “heterosexualize” their lives, those within the community who exist on the fringes of it, namely bisexuals and transgendered individuals, are pushed aside by the very community supposedly advocating for their rights.

Such does not seem to be not the case in Spain and much of Europe where gay culture is part of the norm though a certain amount of intolerance is bound to infiltrate any society to a degree.

Though Spain is sports a large, devout Catholic population, gay marriage is legal here. There were not counter, “God hates gays” protests in Madrid, the theme to the entire pride celebration was advocating transgender rights and it seemed as though the entire Madrid community, and not just its gay community, came out to simply show support.

That being said, when this many people are served as much alcohol as was available and fight over woefully inadequate restroom facilities, the party is stained slightly with the brawls and public urination that comes with such a situation, but I digress.

It is in this way and when the fight for GLBT rights is at this stage that a gay community and its pride festival cease to be a political tool that will inevitably and dishearteningly be subject to manipulation, and can become what it is meant to be: a celebration.

In Madrid, it was this feeling that found its way through to every person in the street on July 3 just as strongly as the music filled the air and its rhythm pushed the crowd to move their feet.

This inspiration that comes from unencumbered happiness through unity makes time melt away, so that when the sun was just turning the sky blue on its way to the horizon on July 4, and I realized I had had about 5 hours of sleep in the last 48, I just kept dancing.

Someone Should Remind Rome it isn’t an Empire Anymore

The Vatican lines are worse than Disneyland.

By far.

Actually, all of Rome has been that special kind of disappointment when you try to reconcile the childhood image of Disneyland with what your adult eyes show you.

Of the country capitals I’ve visited on this trip – London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow – Rome has the smallest population at roughly 2.5 million people. However, it is Rome that has the feel of being too crowded.

Rome, as one of the oldest cities in the world, also seems to be the city that has pushed its history aside the most in order to modernize. When I walk the streets of Rome, I feel like I’m in any city in the U.S., and I haven’t felt that before on this trip.

And as much as I hate to say it, Rome seems to be a city built on exploitation, both of its monuments and of the people who live and visit the city.

It’s not that the monuments themselves are letdowns. The Colosseum, Roman Forum, the Sistine Chapel and other art collections of the Vatican are beautiful. What is disappointing is the baggage that comes with visiting these locations.

The Colosseum, for example, sits right alongside one of Rome’s busiest streets, so there is no place to sit back and privately enjoy or contemplate the monument on your own. There isn’t even an illusion of privacy as all its visitors are crowded at the base of the building to get a look at it.

I’m not sure at what time one would have to arrive at the Vatican Museums to avoid the nightmarish line, but I queued up at about 9:20 a.m. on a Monday, which is about 20 minutes after it opened, and did not set foot in the building until about 12 p.m. Once inside, it was more of the same, and the awe-inspiring floor-to-ceiling frescos of the Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo’s famous ceiling are not enough to trump the agitation of the shoulder-to-shoulder cattle march visitors are forced to submit to in order to see the works.

I also am a bit bitter about my Sistine Chapel experience because of a cane-wielding old woman who pinched my arm when I tried to take a picture. She yelled at me, “No photo!” even though she didn’t work for the museum. Granted, it is prohibited from taking pictures in the chapel, but at the time, I did not know that (an announcement came over the chapel’s PA system shortly after this encounter asking that cameras be stowed), and there were a dozen others furiously snapping pictures around this woman, but she only stopped me.

And as I said, Rome seems to be a city of exploitation, and unfortunately, I don’t have much good to say about the people who live in this city.

Con artists have their craft down to an art in Rome. Take for example, “Roberto,” the PhD archaeologist candidate who approached me near the Roman Forum asking for the time, and then asked if he could give me a ride on his scooter to show me the sights out of the kindness of his heart. I said no and watched “Roberto” give what I expect was the same speech to another woman a little way down the street. I’m not sure at what point I would have gotten propositioned for money, but I doubt it would have been a friendly request.

Another woman in the metro demanded I give her more that what I paid for a single ticket because she “directed” me to the ticket vending machine.

Traffic in Rome is infamous, but I have watched people get out of their vehicles to approach another car and yell at the driver a few times in two days, and I had never seen such a thing before in my life. One older man yelled at a woman through her car window for not backing up so he could get a parking space he passed up.

So yes, I will be happy to leave Rome behind for Spain and not look back. Visitors to Rome, so I’m told, are supposed to throw coins in the Trevi fountain to insure their return to the city. I will not be throwing in any coins because one visit to Rome, much like Disneyland, is enough for me.

Exploring the 117 Islands that Make Up Venice

I had thought Venice might be my first disappointment of this trip.

The little city on the water is beautiful to wander through, but as I walked, I couldn’t help feel a bit of a letdown with the Venice in my mind and the Venice I saw.

That was until I tried to trace my path back to my hostel.

I’m not quite sure what I was looking at, or not looking at, but as I tried to find my way back, it was like I was seeing everything for the first time.

Even shops and squares that I had mentally landmarked in order to find my way back looked completely new to me upon revisiting, and every scene I came upon looked like a rustic painting.

This stands to reason. Venice has been home to master artists since the 1500s such as Titian and Veronese, both of whom have spectacular frescos in the Doges Palace. So it would make sense that the city itself took on the characteristics some of its Renaissance painters became synonymous with: the ability to make it seem like multiple perspectives can be viewed at once.

As the idealized, overly muscular human figures painted into many Italian works of art convey a feeling of viewing the figure, say, from both the side and the back at the same time, so too does Venice play tricks with its audience.

I was told it is very easy to get lost in Venice, and I can see why. However, there are worse fates than getting lost in a centuries old artisan network of islands and canals.

Throughout this trip I have flirted with a state of being that can’t really be described because its very existence is based on a loss of words.

It’s the 1,001th word that is worth more than all of its combined 1,000 counterparts contained in a picture.

It’s the elusive perfect word that could’ve been used to describe how beautiful an object or a place is if its beauty hadn’t taken your breath away.

Like I said, it’s this nameless feeling somewhere between peacefulness and wonderment that I will miss when this trip is over because no matter how many pictures I take (averaging about 200 per location), souvenirs I buy or blogs I post about this trip, nothing will perfectly convey, for example, the shade of red in Red Square nor how, inexplicably, there is the subtlest sweetness to the sea air of Venice.
 

Training Myself in the Chosen Form of European Travel

Let me paint a picture for you.

Train travel is the adopted son of Europe.

It is a fantastic way to see a country outside of its major cities, and for the most part, trains are efficient.

That does not, however, mean they are always enjoyable experiences.

Like when you are in the middle of a 13-hour journey from Prague to Venice and when changing trains in Austria at 4 a.m., you find that the sleeper car you paid to reserve was hijacked by four non-English speaking travelers, so you are forced into the topmost of three bunks.

Oh, and you are only five feet, two inches tall, and there isn’t a ladder, so climbing into said bunk is a bit of a challenge.

Alright, I’ll stop complaining now. In truth, I’ve enjoyed train travel quite a lot thus far on this trip.

I have been especially amazed at the spectrum of coach offerings I have seen.

I’ve taken overnight trains in three different countries, and they were all different. In Germany, for example, the sleeper seats were shaped like large sickles that reclined back into an almost cocoon-esque bed.

In the Czech Republic, I had my own coachette complete with bed, closet, sink, table and a ready supply of beer.

It was only in Austria that I felt like I was in steerage class on the Titanic, but I guess that’s what you get for boarding a train at 4 a.m.
 

Funny Enough, These Gentlemen are Located Next to an Ice Cream Stand

Found this fountain in front of the Franz Kafka museum in Prague, and as the title says, next to an ice cream stand with lots of children. The question you may be asking yourself: What's better (or worse) than dueling, anatomically correct urinating statues? Well, how about the fact that after these gents have done their business, they shake off? Yep, you read that right.