Landing in Paris and Waking Up in Gay Paree

Karla and I consistently end up doing two things the last weekend each June. Primarily, we celebrate our wedding anniversary. Our second "do" for the weekend is really a "didn't" because after just under twelve months of telling ourselves we need to attend the SF Gay Pride Parade, we somehow miss it due to other commitments.

In 2009, we would be celebrating our anniversary in Paris, so we made no illusions about seeing the SF spectacle.

Our plane landed at Charles DeGaulle Airport early on June 27th. Instead of being ready to hit the ground running, we were just glad that we didn't hit the ground face first. (Mon ami are those Americans so happy to be in France that they are kissing the ground? Non. They had an overnight flight.)

While waiting in the lobby for our room to be readied, my eyes focused on a quiz show on the television which seemingly only had one topic for the enitre show: Gay Culture. There was no volume, but there were subtitles in French, but I don't speak or read French, so all of the answers in my head were in Jeopardy form ala questions. (Stonewall? Oscar Wilde? Baudelaire? Whichever one was that cute one on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?)

So after one of those comotose, feel like you are falling deeper into the bed naps, Karla and I woke up bemoaning the fact that it being 5 pm, the museums would be closed, and we had wasted our first full day in Paris. We walked out of the hotel on a mission to see some sites. To our left, we saw a policeman standing in the center of a cordoned off street, and our interest was piqued.

We turned around the corner and a block away there was some sort of parade that made us bi-curious. Or is that both curious? A few steps later and we realized we had traveled 6000 miles to FINALLY attend a Gay Pride Parade.

Click the picture link below to see our seven best pix from that evening.

Gay Paree