Drag Queen Olympics, Roof Climbing and Tasty Eating

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Drag Queen Olympics. Gay Pride 2009. That’s were it was at on the weekend of 30 July to 2 of August 2009.

During that weekend I had two couch surfers stay, Andrei from Romania and Kenny from Moscow (well he was living in Moscow and studying there but originally he was from Malaysia). Andrei had arrived the night before and had spent the day of the drag queen Olympics (whilst I was at work) sight seeing around Amsterdam.

I met him at the Olympics shortly thereafter. The Olympics are not only a show of a competitor’s strength and technical ability, but elements such as hair, poise, make-up, nails and accessories are just as important. We got to see some queens doing the stiletto sprint and the hand bag throw. My favorite was this 60 year old dude, he sort of reminded me of Hyacinth from Keeping up Appearances.

After drag queen Olympics, which marked the starting of the Gay Pride weekend we decide d to head to Vondelpark for some wine and good times. Karol, Justyna, Ewelina, Kris, Christy and Christy’s mate also joined us. Kenny was hitch hiking and ended up hitch hiking to where we were via mitfahrgelengenheit a useful website in Germany and Austria if you want to find rides going all over the country.

That night I decided to give Andrei a ride home on my bike. Josephine (the bike) died that night so we parked it in the city - so I could come back and repair it later then we walked home from the Overtoom to home .

The next day we all headed in to watch the parade. We managed to get a spot on the roof of an electricity box - which might not have been the smartest idea as about 26 other people had that idea also and you could really feel it shake beneath you.

Still we got a great view of the parade and really felt a part of the action. There were floats for aids, dominatrix guys and girls and even a float with a girl dressed up as a fairy swinging on a swing!

As the parade came to a close Juan came and joined us and we headed up to de Parade whilst the boys went to check out the coffee shops.

Me and Juan didn’t enjoy de Parade that much so we left Karol and Justyna and Ewelina there and went to have some dinner at Juan’s before I joined the boys in the city centre.

The next day was Andrei’s birthday. We had Kenny cook some delicious Malaysian food and we all sat and enjoyed beers on the balcony under the stars.

It was a great weekend and I can’t wait to see Kenny and Andrei again some day.

I went to work on Monday and the boys took off, Kenny hitch hiking to Brussels and Andrei back to his flight to Cluj, Romania. Thanks for the awesome weekend!

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