Enlightenment

Enlightenment:

Mardi Gras Sydney-style is a gay (GLBTQI) pride extravaganzapalloozza parade from Hyde Park in the CBD up Oxford Street for about a mile and thence… I have no idea. The entire populace seems to flock to the event and I found myself caught up in the human wave as I endeavored to wend my way from the ferry dock at Circular Quay toward the B&B in Paddington. 

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I, being both vertically challenged and naive about the the fine points of parade-watching strategy, could see nothing of the actual parade, even with the aid of a milk crate booster. No matter. The crowd was a show in and of itself. Warm fuzzy feelings abounded, with the enormous police presence being no exception (photo above notwithstanding). Party on, revelers! I walked about 14 miles today and when the parade had finally passed, I left the ball to avoid pumpkinization. By then it was too dark for more photos anyway, and my guess is things will looked somewhat less pretty as the night wears on.

Apropos of the last comment, when I walked down to the Harbor this morning to meet Kelly at 7AM for a mad-dash seeing of sites before her flight, I passed two clubs that were still open from the night before. The revelers who had stepped outside for a breather were also less pretty than I imagine they had been the previous evening. One young man’s eyes seemed to be focusing in opposite directions. And he was still vertical!(though stationary). This is in sharp contrast to anywhere I was in Tassie, and even the weekend I spent in Melbourne, where they apparently roll up the sidewalks by 11PM or midnight. Sydney really is The Big City in this part of the world.