During my summer trip, I got to attend two major Pride events. The first was Cologne Pride, as previously written about. The second was Berlin Pride. I’m gonna try to keep this short and let the photos do most of the talking!

Rainstorm and I traveled to Berlin by train for a long weekend. We had a couple goals in mind for the trip in addition to attending Pride. There were a few of the regular-type things – the Wall, Museum Island, etc – but I also wanted to visit the Tiergarten for personal (gay fanfic) reasons, and I had an online friend from the US who moved to Berlin in 2020 that I wanted to finally meet in person for the first time.

The day we arrived, we made our way to the hotel, which was a couple blocks from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. This church was bombed in the war, and a bizarre-but-interesting-looking modern version was built next to it. We did some exploring there, then walked all the way down to the Savignyplatz area to enjoy the mini-park and get some (really incredible) dinner.

The next day was Pride. The parade was not far from where our hotel was located, and we went out early with the camera to explore the area, which was full of incredible street art. Eventually, we settled on one corner to wait for the parade to begin, passing the camera back and forth between us. Rainstorm was trained in photojournalism while I am more of a portrait photographer, and it shows in the difference between our photos. We got great ones of both kinds throughout!

Not long into the parade, we joined the march. We were both wearing our flag-capes (me in the nonbinary flag, Rainstorm in the lesbian flag this time), and over the course of the 4-5 miles, we flitted in and out of the parade, stopping to get food at one point, stopping for photos at another, etc. The parade went right through Tiergarten (yaaaas!) and past lots of the spots we’d planned to visit anyway. We didn’t quite make it to the Brandenburg Gate because there were ongoing concerts on the main parade route and the crowd got quite overwhelming, so we split off and ended up near the parliament building before working our way back to our hotel.

Unfortunately, Berlin for some reason decided this would be an excellent day to host an evening half-marathon along the same street that Pride was on for a big chunk of the day. By the time we’d walked back to the area of our hotel – including all the walking before Pride and during – we’d gone eight miles or so, only to find out that we couldn’t cross the main street to the block where our hotel was. We had to detour another mile out of our way to get behind the marathon queue. And at this point, it was dusk, and I didn’t manage to warn Rainstorm in time about a tiny step off a curb (this is the type of thing they have trouble seeing with their eye disorder), and they kinked their ankle. Prob would have been fine except this was the ankle they’d severely broken as a teen (to the point of screws/surgery), so it wasn’t great.

Credit: Rainstorm took all these photos

The next day, their ankle felt better (at first), so we set off to do our day of touristy stuff without modifying our plans beyond “let’s just take it slow.” On Museum Island, we found out that there was a Camille Claudel exhibit. She’s my fave sculptor, so we went ahead and got entrance tickets and spent some time at the Alte Nationalgalerie. Then we slowly made our way toward the Wall, where we walked and walked and walked…until eventually both of us were flagging and Rainstorm’s ankle was acting up. There was so much more to see, but we were cooked.

A miserable hot subway ride later, and we made it to the cafe where we were planning to meet my friend Stepfanie. Stepfanie and I met back in 2011/12 through Sparkpeople, back when that was a thing, and later bonded on other social media platforms mostly over cats. Despite both of us being from the US, we’d never met in person until we were both in Berlin. She suggested the cafe, which was halfway between our hotel and where she lives, and one she really loves.

I have to say, Rainstorm and I were both in quite shitty moods by the time we made it (early) to the cafe and got a table. We were hot, hurting, overstimulated, and generally just not feeling well. We were both a bit snappish with each other, but ironically, we now remember that moment quite fondly because even when we were both stressed and annoyed and whiny, we still communicated well and didn’t take it out on each other. It’s funny to remember your first petty “argument” and to learn that you can be around each other safely even when you both feel like shit.

Things did improve once we both got food (ha!). Then Stepfanie arrived and it was so amazing to be able to hug her and say hello after so many years of virtual friendship. The three of us chatted for maybe 1-1.5 hours, but Stepfanie had a long train ride back, and Rainstorm and I were exhausted, so we took lots of photos and went back to the train station, and we all got home (thankfully) without any further issues with heat, delays, overstimulation, or injury.

Then we were back on the train home the next day, both exhausted from probably fitting in WAY too much over those 2.5 days. Berlin was nice in its own way. It was easier for me to get around because so many people spoke English, but it was also overwhelming in a lot of ways just from sheer size and variation. It was nice to get back to a place that I’d grown quite familiar with after a month of living there.