It continued for
another hour—I think every group in the city participated—political parties,
social clubs, you name it. You know how every one is Irish on St. Patrick’s
Day? Well, everyone was showing solidarity with the LGBTQ (only here it seems
to be HBTQ, I think) community. There were clubs, families, gay couples, hetero
couples, children, drag queens, bands, Brazilian Carnival groups, African
groups, Amnesty International, socialists, communists, Liberals, what looked
like scout groups, a group from the police(!), and on and on. Surprisingly, we
didn’t see any opposition. No backlash. Just a lot of people having fun, with
some good music and good cheer. There was also a party/concert at the end,
which we didn’t stay for (speeches in Swedish). We later found out it was the
last day of a 5-day festival. Talk about serendipity!
When the parade
was over we walked back to the hotel (through the city park) and checked in. It
was Sunday evening, so most places were closed. We did discover that there
seems to be no place nearby to do laundry. “We don’t do that in Sweden.” (You
don’t do laundry?) We could put some items in a bag for the hotel to have
cleaned for us. I was hoping to do a week’s worth of laundry. So I washed out a
few things in the sink. That should keep us respectable as far as Copenhagen,
at least.
(to be continued)
