Parada Gay São Paulo

Avenida Paulista at the beginning of the Parade

Ok, so this happened last month but it's still worth blogging about.

The São Paulo gay parade is the largest gay pride event in terms of attendance in the world.  If you've ever experienced Carnaval in the streets (not the Sambadrome), it's basically that but with gay people and very loud house music.

This year on Sunday the 10th of June there were roughly 3 million attendees, which is less than last year's 3.5 million.  Apparently there were security issues last year (petty theft, homophobic violence).  I think there was a death one year.  Brazil is a traditionally Catholic country and, despite heavy support from the government, Parada Gay still touches a nerve with a lot of people.  However, this year's event went off without a hitch.

In typical Brazilian style, it started late.

Despite the huge amount of people on Avenida Paulista, there weren't any actual crowding issues.  If you wanted to, you could get into the mosh pit following each one of the 12 trio elétricos (giant floats).  Or, like me, you could calmly stand on the pavement bopping your head to the music.

The weather was sunny, the temperature was mild, the atmosphere was joyful.  It was a lot of fun.

Afterwards, we walked down Frei Caneca (Gayville, SP) and stopped outside a lesbian bar that was blaring out house music and took part in a popular Brazilian pastime: drinking beer outdoors.

We went home about 6pm because I had been partying nonstop since Wednesday evening and I desperately needed to sleep.

The VIP area.  Politicians, mostly.

Me and Kelly (my girlfriend)

Me and a famous SP drag queen called Kchaka (I think) 

Giant floating condoms: "Protect your pride, wear a condom"

The theme of the Parade was "Homophobia has a cure: Education and Criminalisation"

Gay bar on Frei Caneca, later on in the evening.

Been a while!

Right, I haven't posted for ages because I've been busy with a new relationship and being all lovey-dovey and all that boring romantic stuff that gets in the way of writing blogs.

I have done a few things that warrant blogging, but they're ages ago now and I like to write about things when they're fresh in my mind, so I'll file them away for another time.  Probably worth blogging on Parada Gay, though.

I'm very happy and settled.  I've moved in with my girlfriend to Gayville, SP.  It's like Clapham Common without all the green stuff.  My Portuguese is coming along slowly.  According to my girlfriend (Brazilian, also an English teacher) I'm a Basic 2.  This means I make horrific mistakes when I speak but I can communicate and make myself understood.  I understand most things said to me.

I have been slacking off, so I'm trying to start a '1 hour a day minimum' for speaking Portuguese with my girlfriend and I've got a book that I intend to start studying soon to help with the grammar and vocabulary, etc.  I watch some Brazilian TV programmes (I still don't get and can't stand Brazilian soaps) and if there's a film on that I've seen before, I watch it in Portuguese with Portuguese subtitles incase I miss something.  I watched the whole of Pan's Labyrinth that way and I understood everything.

Business is a bit slow because of the school holidays, but it's starting to pick up.  I need to push for more private students so I can save for the next holiday period in December/January/February which will be completely dead.

Anyhoo, normal service shall resume in the next few days.  Future posts will probably lean more on the observational side because I'm not a tourist anymore and I'm now more ensconced in Brazilian culture than I was before.