So.... where did I leave off? I think that besides going to the german lakes and swimming across them with my friend Lotta, there was the Transgenialer!!!! The Alternative CSD (Christopher Street Day)/Pride! Berlin moved back it's "normal" pride to July because of the VM/World Cup, but not the crazy radical queers! I have to say that I am soooo glad I was there and a part of that experience.
The day started off with going to shops and getting supplies for a breakfast with my friend Suzanne from Olympia (who also lives in Berlin) and we ate eggs and fruit and toast and tea and talking about living abroad and Olympia and the whole bit! I brought her back some B&B coffee (batdorf and bronson... capitol blend to be exact) and then we went out to the main intersection of Franfurt Tor down the street from x-b where there were hundreds of queers everywhere!!! They made some anouncements from one of the main floats (with banners about being gender queer and 'eat the state'). Most of my friends were passing out fliers for the Dyke/Trans march that is happening July 15th in Berlin and finally hunted down some sun screen to protect myself from burns in the hummid summer sun of Berlin in June!
The Parade started off around I guess 3pm or so and went down Wassaurstrasse, stopping spontaniously as citizens watched off thier balconies along the road. At Wassaur str. (where the S/U-ban run) we stopped and had another 'demo'/performance where everyone had white balloons they all popped at the same time as a mentephore for what the people on the float were talked about )gender conformity and bianaries, etc.) At one point there was some guy taking pictures at the march who was some kind of fasict activist and the made announcements about him over the intercom system while he waves with a huge smile on his face, but people made him feel pretty uncomfortable after that and I guess he finally left. At one point also I saw two people I had interviewed for the 'Travel Queeries: Queeruption, Barcelona' doc. and got thier contact info since I had not gotten it before and they still hadn't seen the film!
The march stopped again after we crossed the canal infront of a huge Nike building and people wheat pasted 'Nike Kills' posters over the Nike adds and people talked about how there was a space in that building 'for artist' but how the company was really exloiding people and that we should not support them- which I thought was personally very cool to see as a part of a Pride/CSD parade! (At this point also I went and got an ice cream with some friends). And so on and on the march goes, down into Kroezberg and the main float started to play QUEER TURKISH MUSIC!!! (Kroezberg is the Turkish/Queer neighborhood and there is not much mingling between the two). It gave me goose bumps and felt so amazing to walk along with almost 2 thousand freaky queers in the streets to queer turkish music with all the turkish men looking at us from the bars where they were sitting in awe. When we finally got to Kotbuza Tor we stopped again under the large apt. building that goes bridges the street and queer turkish people talked about arranged marrages and oppression of being queer and turkish. People also spoke in german again about allyship in not letting kroezberg get gentified and working on racism! It was so amazing I cannot even tell you! A lot of my friends were getting really emotional and there was a turkish woman on the side of the march who was crying.
THEN.... some people from the march came down into the croud a bit more and demonstrated how one could cut off the yellow part of the german flag (which is yellow, black and red) and instantly you had an anarchist flag! Amazing! (had other friends who were also talking about doing this at some point to the millions of german flags around town, on peoples cars, businesses and homes.. and even on many backs as capes... some shops in Berlin are even sold out of flags now). I think this action really made me aware of how people with more political conciousness were truely feeling about all the german flags, which of course have a different cultural context in regards to nationalism since it is so closely linked to Nazi history. In Germany it is pretty much a taboo to be patriotic, unlike for example in the US (where is is maybe taky... I think it would be more the equivalent of the confeterate flag or something). After cutting the flag though, there was one flag with a bid on it and they burned that one (while wearing ski masks).
Then there was more Turkish Queer Music (one of my new favorites!!!) and hot turish gay boys danced on each other on the float stage as we moved along to the final desination in the main square of Kroezberg on Oronianstrasse. There were booths set up all over and a huge main stage with drag performances, speakers from different social and political groups, hip hop performances, and so on. Saw tons of friends (some of which were a little too drunk) and finally had to head home and then realized that it was infact 9pm but so light out it could have been 5pm. Got some more water and headed back to the house where one of the after parties was going to be. People from x-b had cleaned up the courtyard and bar and it looked amazing. I felt totally spent though so I went upstairs and got into my pjs, but started to listen to neko case and got a kick of energy so I got dressed up like a drag queen a in gold leme gown and went downstairs to shock people. Some people from the house did a performance about fußbol/soccer and and then there was dancing and time to go to bed for me.
The next day I went swimming at a nudist beach with friend from the house and some visiting gals from Lipzec and Warsaw/Poland. Had some good talks about Poland and London and ate lots of strawberries and went swimming tons in the water, doing all kinds of wierd flips off of sholders, etc. Afterwards me and the polish gals went to swarza canal (the women.lesbian.tran wagon platz... like a caravan radical queer feminist trailor park in the middle of berlin) and found they had no more föku (food). Went back home and ate and I thought I was leaving the next morning for Vienna, but infact the calendar in my room started on mondays not fridays so as I was working on e-mail at 2am I realized my mistake and wrote notes to everyone that apparently I could not count or read a calendar so I would infact be there another day. In the morning everyone just laughed at me, but it was actually really good because then I got a chance to catch up on work, etc.
I finally did catch my flight to Vienna and am here now... am going to let this blog sit for a bit before I do my Vienna update... hope everyone is doing well and enjoy the pictures!!!
xo, elliat
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