A year ago, my (then) good friend Rainstorm talked about going to Pride in Cologne, Germany by themself. I had never been to Germany, and I had barely gone to my first Pride event (Texas summers do not make for easy Pride festivals!!), so I popped out with the random idea that I should visit Rainstorm the next summer and attend Pride with them.

Back then, we weren’t dating or anything, just really close friends, and this wasn’t meant as a dating-type thing. The idea kinda stuck, as a means to have me visit them, see a new-to-me country, and celebrate Pride while it wasn’t 100+ degrees outside. Then other ideas came up – different trips, different events – that kinda took away the possibility of Cologne Pride. After all, I can’t go to Germany in late June/early July if I’m going to London for IneffableCon in August. That’s a LOT of transatlantic flying…

Then Rainstorm and I began dating.

Then I came to Germany in the winter to visit them.

Then we collectively decided that it might be nice to have me come to Germany in late June, then just stay until we went to London together in August. We’d have lots of time together, plus I could escape the Texas heat for a bit. I had the flights for London already booked and I had some gift cards for the airline… I called, and in the end, it only cost me like $50 to change the flight. Yay!

(Note: we’re both really glad we did, because my current circumstances mean that after my already-booked travel plans this year, I won’t be able to travel again for quite some time. So it’s nice that we have two months to spend with each other now.)

Cologne Pride, it turns out, is the largest Pride celebration in all of Europe. There was a bit of a heat wave when I first got to Germany – it was actually hotter here than in San Antonio, and there is no a/c here… Yeesh. But a cool front came through, and Pride weekend was beautiful.

We had a very busy weekend. First, we traveled out to the house of one of Rainstorm’s friends. She had a bunch of friends over for her birthday. About half of them spoke English, so that was nice, and she had two very big fluffy cats, so I was in heaven. (I miss my cats!) We stayed until the late evening, when we took a train back to Cologne and attended a FLINTA party at a club until something like 2am, when we trekked the hour back to where Rainstorm lives to crash before the parade the next day.

The weather could not have been more different than in Texas! It was chilly and rainy, and yet, the parade still drew out its largest crowd ever, in excess of 1.2 million attendees! We spent several hours watching the various displays before we abandoned the parade route for coffee and food. By the time we headed back to the train station – which was, notably, done up in rainbow lights! – the parade was still going strong.

The environment was so nice. Everyone in Pride getup, with various flags worn as capes or drawn on cheeks in paint, tons of costumes and fun outfits and great signs. About half of the signs I saw in the parade were in English, and when they weren’t, Rainstorm could translate for me. We got tons of great photos – though I didn’t bring the big camera, because RAIN – and generally enjoyed a really fun day.

Notably, we weren’t able to wear our original intended Pride outfits due to the weather, but we have another chance in a few weeks for Berlin Pride. I’m really excited to be able to attend two Pride parades this year!