Madrid EuroPride

Each year one European city is chosen to be the focus of the continent's gay pride celebrations. This year, it was Madrid. Greg, Martin, Alex, and I (along with half of London) flew to Madrid for a very fun weekend. We managed one cultural "thing" on the Friday, when we visited the Prado Museum. We were there when Mum and Dad frantically tried calling me to find out if I was okay, thinking I was in London, because they had just learned of the attempted bombings in Haymarket. Mum and Dad were concerned because the they heard that nail bombs with 200 litres of gas had gone off, somewhere near me. In actuality, the bombs were nowhere near home or work, there was only 60 litres, and they hadn't gone off at all... but that's what happens when fragments of news travel 11,000 miles. Like with 21/7, it seems that the news is sensationalised in direct proportion to the distance it travels.

On the Friday evening, we ventured into Chueca - the gay district - which was jam-packed with Madrileños, Spaniards, and thousands of foreigners. Madrid attracts literally hundreds of thousands of tourists for what is one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world. It makes London's Pride celebrations look anaemic (and rightly so - I don't understand how this city of 7.5 million can have such a crap Pride event). This year's EuroPride saw one million people converge on Madrid. The main event is the Pride parade which is held between in the sunlit hours of early Saturday evening. Once again, much better than London, but nothing like Sydney.

For my friends and I, the main event was the Infinita Mente dance party at the Telefonica Dome later that evening. The venue is amazing - a huge concert stadium with retractable seating to create three tiers above the main dance floor. We spent all night on the first tier. I love everything about Spain, except just one thing. And that is that the bars don't get busy 'til midnight, and the clubs don't even open until 1 or 2am. We arrived at Infinita Mente at 1:30am, and it was just getting started. So while it was a late night, and a long night, it was fantastic. Loads of fun. We all agreed that Infinita Mente was one of the best parties we'd ever been to.

Sunday night we went to Supermartxe, a Matinee party at some club somewhere in Madrid. I can't remember where exactly, but I'm not sure it mattered then, or now. The real highlight of Madrid was the Lago pool. I cannot describe the simple pleasure of being able to sunbathe and go for a swim in a pool, when one lives in perenially over-cast London (especially this "summer"). And there are only three Olympic-size swimming pools in all of England. That little factoid always makes me laugh.

Click here to view my Madrid EuroPride slideshow.