HBQT & National Swedish Day.

Let’s start with HBQT, this is a LGBT festival in Göteborg, it ran from the 1st June to the 5th. The city just becomes a gay paradise, If you have ever seen the U.S version of Queer eye for the straight guy, where Liberty Avenue is just covered in rainbow flags, Göteborg becomes like that. The majority of flag poles fly the rainbow flag, (even one at a church which I thought was quite impressive) shop displays are in rainbow colours, In the centre of the city is a stage where lectures & performances are given. If I was fluent in Swedish I may have been able to enjoy it more, however I went on the Saturday thinking it would be the busiest day, but I suppose on a 5 day festival it’s all spread out. The entertainment is a little thin, the pride march was on the Sunday so I didn’t get to walk/see. It was nice to be in a city that embraces it all over rather than a square or a street. As written in an earlier blog Sweden ( & the other Nordic countries) are incredibly gay friendly. So we spent about 6 hours in the city which was nice, there was a street in the city that was rammed packed with people, it seemed to be a street music festival. It was incredibly crowded and with people sat on the street drinking, dancing I was reminded of a scene from Mexico city (which was featured in Andrew Marr’s programme “Megacities”) It wasn’t my scene, when I feel claustrophobic in the open air, I have to get out of there. I imagine it would be Simon Cowel’s nightmare listening to the music on the street. A majority of it was awful.

National Swedish Day
Well there isn’t that much to write about this day. I thought it would be a big deal like in Norway, but no. It is observed on 6th June. It was created in 1983 replacing “Swedish Flag Day” which was created in 1916 to celebrate the election of King Gustav Vasa, as he was considered the founder of modern Sweden. Only in 2005 was Swedish Day made an official public holiday. So Swede’s don’t really know how to celebrate it so they just treat it as an extra day of the weekend. However We in Delta went to the beach for a BBQ which was very nice it has to be said.