Stockholm - Day Two

The underground system here is marvellous. Both the trains and the stations are modern and spacious and the ride is incredibly smooth. The mobile system has underground repeaters so you can use your phone on the trains (which is a bit bizarre, since I couldn’t get a signal in Brett’s apartment.) My only complaint is that it’s all painted grey – very dull!

It was another lovely sunny day, so this morning we took the tube down to the harbour this morning and had a boat tour around the various islands that make up Stockholm.

After the tour we headed into the old town to have lunch in the square opposite the Nobel Museum and then headed down to the waterfront again to watch the Pride Parade go by. There are some pictures of the parade in my photoblog if you are interested. As I was watching the parade it occurred to me that I’ve never actually watched the London Pride march, so I’ve no idea how it really compares to Stockholm’s. Two things stood out about today though; firstly, it seemed that the parade was much more for ordinary men and women. There were the usual outrageous drag queens, the body paint, the muscles and the sequinned thongs, but there were quite a few floats, which I think belonged to nightclubs, followed by literally hundreds of people just having a good time.

The other thing that stuck out was that the Armed Forces had a float – something which is currently unthinkable in the UK.

Unfortunately about half-way through the parade, the promised rain arrived. Most of the onlookers had come prepared with umbrellas; the rest of us ran for cover in doorways and nearby bars. It continued with occasional showers all afternoon, but was dry in between times.

The weather didn’t seem to put the crowd off though, there were thousands of people lining the route and it seemed to be a pretty mixed crowd; we started the afternoon standing next to a father who had brought his son and daughter, who both looked pre-teen, to see the parade. That’s the kind of integration and acceptance we need more of in the UK.

We had planned to follow the parade to the Pride Park, but between the weather and the certainty that the park would be packed solid with people, we decided discretion was the better part of valour and went home instead.