Tuesday 14th Aug
I discovered that a university town, Padova, about an hour
from where I live held a month long festival celebrating all things LGBT. Since
I had been a very bad member of the LGBT community and not been to one pride
celebration this year, it was hard to refuse the chance to visit one when the
opportunity knocked on my door, or tent.
So on a bright and sunny Tuesday afternoon Natalie and I
boarded a bus bound for Padova. The
journey took much longer than it should. Traffic was awful. Word had clearly
spread that we were going to Padova and the paparazzi were out in full force.
Eventually we arrived in Padova half an hour late and in need of a place to
sleep. We eventually found a hotel 5 minutes walk from the entrance to the
Pride festival, and they even gave us a discounted price as we were two people
in a room for 3 people. The room was gorgeous, we had a separate bedroom,
lounge and the bathroom was bigger than my tent. After an aperitif on the
balcony, we decided it was time to go and be proud.
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| Look at how shiney the floor is |
Entering ‘Padova Pride Village’ it was just like other pride
events I’d been to in England, except it was all in another language, strange
that eh? One thing we noticed about it here which was different to how we do
things in the UK was that lots of people brought their pets. Mainly dogs. Now I’m
very fond of dogs and I think it’s great that the LGBT world is finally
arranging events that allow the canine community to celebrate their
homosexuality also. I think in England we are far too speciesest when it comes
to pride celebrations. As it was Tuesday
night entrance was free, which made us even more impressed. We looked at the
vintage stalls and books stalls. I even dressed up as some kind of strange
military personnel; I don’t think it suited me.
The festival was held in a strange car park which felt as
though it could have been used as a sound stage. On either side of the car park
were doors into warehouses which were no longer being used. We surmised that on
a weekend these warehouses’ probably acted as clubs. We were quite content with
our outside area, the weather was still fine and two stages were plenty for us.
We watched a band who introduced me to one of my new favourite songs ‘Melissa
Etheridge, Like the Way I Do,’ amongst other songs. It sounded so good sang by
the Italian lady with an accent we almost believed it was an original song she
had penned herself. After the set was up we approached the band’s two guitar
players to find out how long they had been together etc etc etc, turns out that
they were not even a band and that usually our leading lady was a solo artist, I
just wish I had her name to share as she was very good.
Once we had suitably embarrassed ourselves using our pidgin
Italian it was time to watch the main event of the night, a regional heat for
Mr Gay Italia. I’d like to say that the winner held good values, believed in
world peace (‘and tougher sentences for parole violators’) but all was spoken
in Italian, so I have no idea. I’m sure the right man won in the end and he was
presented with a sash, proudly proclaiming he was now and will be (for the next
12 months) Mr Gay Padova. A very useful title in many circles I’m sure. What
else was there to do now but dance? So taking a lesson from the Mavericks, we
did just what they always wanted to do and we danced the night away!
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