The Netherlands 2026, Part Four: Return to Amsterdam

Friday, July 31 Tony's Chocolonely Super Store Oh look, a PCC connection! It turns out that, although their chocolate bars are manufactured in Belgium (in Antwerp), the company is headquartered in Amsterdam—they have a Tony's Chocolonely Super Store just a couple blocks straight in front of Amsterdam Centraal Station. This has long been one of my favorite brands of chocolate, if not my very favorite, that we sell at PCC—I even once had a broker send me some as a gift. That doesn't mean we bought any in Amsterdam, though. Why bother? We constantly have the little bite size chocolates at the front desk anyway (and whether I eat more of them than anyone else will ever be a mystery for the ages). But naturally I wanted to see their "Super Store," and we went in to check it out—it's rather smaller in size than "Super Store" might suggest, though admittedly they do cram a hell of a lot in there—the evening after we returned from our day trip to The Hague. My favorite thing was this Pride-themed display they had, with rainbow packaging. (I also saw some cool Amsterdam-specific bar wrappers at the airport on our way home, which curiously I did not see at the Super Store, but there may very well have been some there and I just didn't see them.) I did not realize until researching the brand for this very caption how massive Tony's Chocolonely's chocolate market share is in the Netherlands—19%, making it the leading individual chocolate brand in the country.
Sunday, August 2 Anne Frank House Thursday and Friday, July 30 and 31, were our day trips to Rotterdam and the Hague, respectively; Saturday August 1 was the World Pride Canal Parade; and Monday, August 3 was when we left for our three-day detour to Brussels—which left Sunday, August 2 as the one, non-World Pride day we had in Amsterdam during that stretch. The major event we did that day was visit the Anne Frank House, which is so difficult to get tickets to, we waited to schedule almost anything until we had this booked. You can only even attempt to book tickets at most six weeks in advance, and if you wait much longer than that, all spots will be sold out. But we managed to get tickets for August 2. If you're like me and you like to take tons of pictures (I have nearly 2,000 shots from this entire, 18-day trip), the most distinctive thing about experiencing the Anne Frank House is the strict prohibition of taking photos of anything inside. I still have a photo album for this visit, of course (just click the image above), but it consists mostly of exterior shots, a couple of shots at or near the Museum Cafe (including an incongruously upbeat, given the somber nature of the museum, menu of Pride Specials), and some screenshots I took from the museum website, because I was fascinated by the Nazis' sinister "Jewish dot maps." I also downloaded my own copy of the only film footage in existence, very brief, of Anne Frank, something I had no idea existed. Visiting the Anne Frank House is pretty depressing, as you might imagine, but also essential. And I won't say it felt like "homework;" the museum is very well put together and engaging, and it's pretty amazing to be walking through the very rooms Anne Frank and her family hid in for two years. The photo above is the exterior of the original building, the facade facing a canal. There's a tiny plaque on the wall that lots of people were taking selfies with. Lest I feel a little too much like Justin Beiber, I decided not to do that.
We did take a selfie on a nearby canal bridge, though! Anne Frank House is in the middle-distance on the left, behind some trees from this angle, and across from that church. The church, incidentally, is The Westerkerk, built between 1620 and 1631 and has an 87-meter (286 ft) church tower, the tallest church tower in Amsterdam, the equivalent of a 25-story building. I had actually looked this up early on as a possible observatory to go up, similar to the church tower we went up at St. James Church in the Hague, but I deprioritized it for all the countless other things we had to do in Amsterdam (not least of which was A'dam Tower), and it turns out the Westerkerk tower is currently closed for restoration work anyway. In any case, I had no idea until looking it up just now that it's right next door to the Anne Frank House.
Thursday, August 6 Hotel Oscar So this brings us to our second leg in Amsterdam for this overall trip: we spent 8 nights at the Wittenberg by Cove Hotel in Amsterdam; then 3 nights at the Aparthotel Adagio Brussels Grand Place in Belgium; and then back here, Hotel Oscar, for 5 nights again in Amsterdam before heading back home—so, 16 hotel nights in all; a 17-day trip when considering we left Seattle on July 25 but did not land in Amsterdam until July 26; and 18 days overall when counting all travel days. This is, by one day (compared to 17 days for the Australia trip in 2023), the longest trip I have ever taken. Anyway, the above photo was taken during our canal tour on only our second full day in Amsterdam on the first leg here; Hotel Oscar is three buildings from the left, the narrowest one, the dark blue paint around nine windows. This closer shot was taken only moments later—our room was the far-left window on the second floor (or floor 1 the way Europeans counterintuitively count). To my great surprise, these windows opened wide open, and from just across a narrow street and bike lane our room overlooked the Amstel River, only a block or so from where the river comes to an end and then feeds into the center of the Canal Belt, the canals of which otherwise flow into the much larger IJ River (which is technically not a river, but a former bay now a body of water connected to the North Sea Canal, which thus connects to the North Sea around 14 miles—or 22 km—to the northwest). Everything about Hotel Oscar was much, much smaller than the Wittenberg had been; the Wittenberg was like a studio apartment for long-term stay with a full kitchen. Hotel Oscar was our only hotel this trip with no kitchen at all, only a tiny refrigerator and a water kettle for tea or instant coffee (though we did partake many times in the espresso and hot chocolate machine downstairs in the lobby). The location, however, could hardly be beat—basically everything we did these last 5 days were within easy walking distance of here.
We were headed toward dinner and standing right in front of Amsterdam Centraal when I took this shot, looking toward the clock tower to the southeast about 0.8 miles (1.3 km) away, which stands at the aforementioned end of the Amstel River and is about a block from Hotel Oscar. I was just really taken with this shot when I looked at it later.
Choux Choux is a high-end but relaxed Amsterdam restaurant—the one we were walking to in the previous photo—that serves a five-course, "vegetable-forward" (we still needed to make sure they knew we were vegetarians) meals. It was one of many recommendations given to Shobhit by another person in his Weight Watchers group who is familiar with Amsterdam, and we were both very interested in making it one of the few places where we very much splurged—with only one optional course added that we only split, and opting against wine pairings with each course that would have been another €9.50 every time, in the end the bill still worked out to €100 each ($115.60 USD). I don't think we have spent this much on a dinner since we ate at Canlis in Seattle 20 years ago, and I was less taken with Canlis as they require dinner jackets. I went to Choux in shorts and a T-shirt, and I wasn't the only one. Anyway, the place is insanely popular, and having only gotten the recommendation about two weeks ahead of time, all time slots were booked, but we could get put on a waiting list. This apparently works for people frequently, but you have to respond to the email that a table has become available quickly, or else someone else will snatch it. We must have gotten three different such emails before we were quick enough to snag a table that became available at 8:30, the latest available time slot, on August 6. I thought it was well worth it. Shobhit was more critical of some of the courses than I was, mostly because a couple of times they included smoky flavor which he does not care for; I just let the flavors wash over me and very much enjoyed them—well, until we got to the last course, the dessert, picture above, beautiful as it was in presentation (notwithstanding how much it reminded me of the alien pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which I decided not to mention to our server). I found too much savory flavor in this dessert competing with the sweetness, so it was my least favorite of the courses. I did ask how Choux is pronounced, and apparently it's pronounced like "Shoo." And it's the French word for cabbage. So really, we had dinner at Cabbage Restaurant.
Friday, August 7 Stroopwafel World Why did we not learn from our experience with the Belgian waffles in Brussels? I don't know! When we finally stopped to get a fresh made stroopwafel in Amsterdam, we got a couple of them with toppings without thinking—shobhit got the above one with Biscoff cookie crumbles on it; I got one with salted caramel. To be sure, they were still absolutely delicious, especially right off the waffle iron, making them the best stroopwafels I had ever had—the packaged stroopwafel candies available in the States are far inferior. But! By August 10, we went into another stroopwafel shop—by a different name, Hans Egstorf—and this time we ordered a plain stroopwafel, like the locals eat them. We ate it a while later at Dam Square after sharing a sandwich we had ordered to go from the also-excellent Zero Zero, and we both agreed that, just like the Belgian waffle, the plain stroopwafel is preferable.
Saturday, August 8 Here's something you don't see in the U.S.: public urinals are scattered throughout the city. I am insanely pee shy so there's no way in hell I would ever be able to use one of these, but the people here clearly use them quite casually and frequently. They are clearly designed only for men, though, and there was even a woman who fought against a fine for public urination several years ago, because she did not have the same readily available options as men. Apparently a judge said she could have just used one of the public urinals (which do have slightly varying designs, but still), which not only indicated that sexism is alive and well even in the progressive Netherlands, but the judge was rightly ridiculed widely for it.
De Laatste Kruimel The bakery and restaurant De Laatste Kruimel (French for The Last Crumb) was a recommendation from Cathryn at work, who for a while had family living in Amsterdam, so she had visited and was familiar. We liked this place so much, we patronized them no fewer than three times during our trip: once getting drinks and an amazing sandwich to go during our first full day in Amsterdam (my hot chocolate was delicious); once for a sit-down breakfast the morning of the World Pride March, during our second leg in Amsterdam; and the very next day Shobhit ordered pastries to go to have after dinner at the hotel, including their apple pie and a couple types of croissants. When we were there for breakfast, sitting on the tiny patio overlooking a very narrow canal, I also ordered a hot chocolate, and this time it came in a glass in which I had to mix the chocolate myself, and it was excellent. We also happened to meet one of the owners of the place, Evolina, and Shobhit asked to take a picture with her. A person at a neighboring table offered to take the picture, but we wanted to get a selfie with the canal behind us. Evolina advised Shobhit to move a couple of his things away from the edge of our tiny little table (there was only space for three such tables on that patio). She said a woman once had a Louis Vuitton bag fall off a table into the canal. She said a guy just a little ways down the canal fished it out for the woman, who was apparently not very openly appreciative, but Evolina was very kind and gave the woman the benefit of the doubt, saying maybe she was just too stressed to thank the man.
The Heineken Experience ... Gift Shop "The Heineken Experience" happened to be along our long walk to the start of the World Pride March, and, much like the Belgian Beer World Experience in Brussels, the cost would have been wasted on me. We were plenty early enough that Shobhit still could have done it on his own, but he decided not to bother, and we walked through their gift shop instead. I did like that they had these Pride-related "All stars unite" bottles of beer, though (in connection with their contingent in the Canal Parade). Shobhit almost bought one, but they had none that were chilled available.
Omval Skyline As noted already in previous emails, Amsterdam has three separate skylines of tall(er) buildings—the largest and densest cluster is in the Zuidas district, about 23 buildings of roughly 20 floors or more roughly three and a half miles or 5.6 km southwest of Centraal Station; there's a group of about 5 buildings in Overhoeks, across the IJ river from Centraal Station (this is where A'dam Tower is located), and then there are 5 buildings in Omval, a district also three and a half miles or 5.6 km from Centraal Station, just to the southeast. There's a couple more places still with small clusters of tall(ish) buildings, but I would say these are the largest three—and Omval, pictured above, contains both the tallest and second-tallest buildings in Amsterdam. The tallest, seen in the center of the above shot, is called—fittingly—Rembrandt Tower, and stands at 150 meters (492 ft) with 35 floors. It's been standing since 1995, but both Rotterdam and the Hague have had taller buildings all along; Rembrandt Tower is currently 13th-tallest in the Netherlands. At only 492 feet and 35 floors, Rembrandt Tower does not have an especially impressive height—Seattle alone has 22 buildings that are taller—but, with nothing nearby to compete with it, it stands out. You know that if there were a public observatory in that building I would be all over it, but alas, there is not. I didn't even realize we'd be walking this close by on our way to the World Pride March, so I was happy just to get a few photos from across the Amstel River.
Demetra Pizza The first of two pizza places we went to that night—the first, Demetra, was where we sat down to eat, and it was excellent. and quirky in a fun way, with neon-altered pieces of art on the walls. The second place was even better, La Zoccola del Pacioccone, where we ordered a pizza to go—we shared a 10" pizza from both places, and in both places the pizza was served without being sliced first. Demetra served them with cutting shears, which I presume La Zoccola del Pacioccone did as well, but not for to-go orders, of course. We took that home and cut it with a plastic knife, which required a bit more effort but was totally worth it. We went to both places because they were highly rated, but only La Zoccola del Pacioccone used a wood oven, which Shobhit insists makes the pizza better. But, well, I thought both pizzas were amazing.
Canals of Jordaan Shobhit really wanted to see a sunset reflected in the waters of the canals, as we have seen in so many photographs, postcards, and paintings, so we went looking for an area of canals we had not yet explored. I googled what are considered the prettier canals, and multiple options came up, but one area we had not yet been through was a district called Jordaan, on the north and west side of the canal belt. It was indeed very pretty, though the canals were not necessarily all that prettier than those of other areas; I did pay more attention to the flower boxes, though, which framed some of my photos quite nicely. We never did see the sunset reflections Shobhit wanted, however—the sun is at the wrong angle this time of year, and a guy in one of the art galleries we walked into said we'd have better luck with that in November.
Continuing our walk through Jordaan at dusk, I got this lovely shot of a canal bridge with arches lined with lights. We noticed a lot of boat tours happening at this time, clearly out for sunset canal cruises. It was indeed quite pleasant, and for a little bit we even just found a place to sit on the edge of the sidewalk by a canal, our legs dangling over the side. I'd have preferred a bench with a canal view, but I guess you can't have everything.
Sunday, August 9 Zandvoort Beach August 9 was not the first time Shobhit and I did some things separately while in the Netherlands, but it was the one day we spent most of the day apart. There was an event at a local gay bar that day that Shobhit wanted to go to but I was not really interested in, and it was the one day that week that had a high of 86°F (30°C) and was thus suitable beach weather. Most other days only got into the mid-seventies during that second leg in Amsterdam, after occasionally-unbearable temperatures well into the 90s (32-34°C a couple of days) during a heat wave through the first leg. Shobhit is always the one who wants to find a nude or clothing-optional beach, which was how I found this one further to the south of Zandvoort, a coastal resort suburb of Amsterdam right at the opening of the North Sea Canal. In the end Shobhit didn't go, but I did, and I did indeed do some nude sunbathing. Are you scandalized yet? Anyway, a guy we met at a restaurant in Amsterdam declared Zandvoort "not one of the prettiest beaches" (it seemed pretty enough to me) and said locals like to go to islands in the north, but Zandvoort is incredibly accessible by public transit—a train goes there straight from Amsterdam Centraal with only maybe three stops in between, only takes 34 minutes, and cost me €7.30 ($8.45 USD) each way. The photo above was actually taken from the train on the way there, the closest thing I saw to a forest in the Netherlands. To be fair, I didn't ever go far outside of any of the cities looking for forests, either.
Check it out, I actually rented a bike in the Netherlands! Until I went to Zandvoort on my own, I thought I might go this entire trip without riding a bike—something that may surprise a lot of people given my love of my bike at home. But the thing is, Shobhit and I did almost everything together, which kind of ruled out bike riding because he never learned how to ride a bike as a child, and has always had balance issues (he also has issues with skating). With this new plan for Zandvoort, though, there were now two good reasons for me to rent a bike: first, Shobhit was no longer a concern; and second, it quite practically cut down what otherwise would have been a 45-minute walk to the section of beach I was looking for, which is about 2 miles (3.4 km) to the south of the center of town, to a fraction of the time needed to get there. You may notice in the above that I am again wearing my bicycle earrings. I got complimented on these all over the Netherlands, not just in Amsterdam; one woman noted she had never seen earrings like them. I'm kind of surprised it would be easier to get earrings like these in the States than in the Netherlands, actually. Also, this is as good a time as any to note the thing Shobhit got nearly as many compliments on: his hemp necklace containing large wooden beads arranged in rainbow colors, which my friend Lynn's stepdaughter Miriam made for Shobhit right in front of us (and he paid her for it) at Lynn and Zephyr's wedding three years ago. Shobhit does not like to wear metal jewelry (he used to just carry around his wedding ring, and lost it years ago) so this works perfectly for him, and he wears it all the time.
   Anyway I reached the beach at about 12:50, and left the beach at 3:20, so I spent about two and a half hours sunbathing. I used a lot of sunscreen! I still got some slight sunburns here and there, but nowhere too sensitive. I walked into the water only a little; it was freezing. And the bike ride back to the rental place (the daily rental was €16.25, or $19.29 USD) was lovely, especially on a less-used bike bath than the crazy ones in Amsterdam. You can find warnings all over the place online that tourists trying to bike through Amsterdam can find themselves overwhelmed by all the locals who zip by and might even run into you if you get in their way, like bike versions of New York pedestrians. "I'm bikin' here!"
Red Light District Shobhit and I did one last walk through the Red Light District on Sunday evening after I had returned from Zandvoort. You might discover some gems if you're paying attention, such as this woman getting felt up among the sidewalk bricks.
Monday, August 10 The Dutch Pancake Masters A final bit of authentic Dutch cuisine: Shobhit was always curious about the "Dutch pancakes" being advertised all over the place, and finally we stopped at a place called The Dutch Pancake Masters and paid €9.50 ($11) for one. It was explained to us that Dutch pancakes are made with a specific type of dough, and are thicker than a crepe but thinner than a typical American pancake. It looked and felt much like a standard American pancake to me, if indeed a bit thinner, but just as we did with Belgian waffles and Dutch stroopwafels, we went with the local custom and ordered one to go with nothing added, to be eaten plain. It was given to us in a literal pizza box which made me think it must be bigger than I was expecting—and, indeed it was!
Tuesday, August 11 Afsluitdijk—from the air You have to look very closely from this angle, but you can see what might otherwise look like a bridge, stretching straight from the smaller peninsula to the right to land on the other side of the water; the line is diagonal from this angle. That is not a bridge, but a dike—more specifically, the Afsluitdijk. It was originally finished in 1932 and, at the time, it was the longest sea barrier and enclosure dam of its kind ever constructed. It remains the longest in the Netherlands, and the second-longest in the world, after the Saemangeum Seawall in South Korea. Afsluitdijk runs 20 miles (32 km) in length, and a width of 300 ft (90 m). (Saemangeum Seawall beat it in length by a mile.) If you look at Afsluitdijk on Google Maps, it's easy to assume that the body of water southeast of it is a seawater bay—which it actually used to be; now the Afsluitdijk separates the North Sea to its northwest from what is now IJsselmeer, the largest lake in the country—itself cut in two by Houtribdijk, which is 16 miles (26 km) long. I am always fascinated by major feats of engineering, not just tall buildings, and visiting specifically the Afsluitdijk was long on my list of things to do while in Amsterdam, but it was the one thing I was really interested in that we just never fit it. This would have been much easier with a car, and we only relied on public transit, with which it would have taken us nearly two hours just to get to the southwest end of the dike. I had to settle with the sight of it from our plane out of Amsterdam, but I was pretty excited to get this nice shot from the window. [posted 7:24am]

World Pride Amsterdam 2026

Sunday, July 26 Amsterdam Airport Schiphol The first delightful thing we saw as soon as we got off the airplane and headed for the baggage claim at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport: the immediate iconography telegraphing that it's local Pride season. I don't know if they do this every year or if this was special for World Pride, but this rainbow colored baggage carousel was very similar to the one we saw in the Sydney Airport in 2023 for that city's World Pride—and this one was even more pronounced. This might be a good time to note that, as striking as it was in Sydney to see all the civic engagement with Pride like I had never seen before, Amsterdam has not only been very similar, given things like long-legal sex work and drug use (in neither of which did I partake, for the record), Amsterdam is quite clearly the most progressive city I have ever visited, and likely ever will visit again. To say this entire trip has been special would be an understatement.
Saturday, August 1 World Pride Canal Parade Did I mention that Amsterdam's Canal Pride is entirely on boats? This easily makes Amsterdam's Pride Parade the most distinctive I have ever been to—and I have now been to Pride Parades in Seattle: Vancouver, B.C.; San Francisco; New York City; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and now Amsterdam. All but one of them march in the street—Amsterdam's floats down one of their famous 600-year-old canals. And guess what else! The whole reason Amsterdam wanted to host World Pride in 2026: it's the 25th anniversary of this country becoming the first nation in the world to pass marriage equality. If you look closely at the boat/float in the above shot, you can see it on the sign: 25 YEARS OF MARRIAGE EQUALITY. This is indeed a thing to be incredibly proud of. Side note: I did not realize this until Shobhit mentioned it to our European Parliament tour guide in Brussels, but it so happens that Belgium, the one other country we visited on this trip, was the second nation in the world to pass marriage equality law. It happened two years later than the Netherlands, in 2003. So it's pretty cool that on this trip we visited both the first and second countries in the world to legalize same-sex marriage—many, many years before I even hoped to dream it would happen in the United States. (It happened in Washington State in 2012 and then nationally in 2015.) I don't know if the above float was the first one in the Canal Parade, but it was the first one we saw, and we got there right around the time the parade started, so it may have been. If not, it was among the first.
Hello from the Netherlands' first openly gay Prime Minister, Rob Jetten! Neither Shobhit nor I would have had any idea that was who this was passing by, if not for the straight, middle-aged couple in front of us who turned around and very kindly informed us. The man even commented that it's great how he posts to social media with his fiancé (Argentinian professional field hockey player Nicolás Keenan) a lot, because according to the guy telling us all this, "tolerance is going down," even here in the Netherlands and unfortunately many other places as well. Jetten was also the first Dutch Prime Minister ever to take part in the parade.
It came as no surprise that Canal Pride in Amsterdam took trans inclusion very seriously, and I don't think I have ever seen a more visibly trans-themed boat than this one—which was actually made, but all things, the Dutch-based (more specifically Utrecht-based) Rabobank. It therefore incorporated some financial puns into its signage, such as the huge one seen alongside the float here, or hand-held signs that read "trans action," but also more serious handheld signs, like the one held in the above photo that reads "talent has no gender," or even "1 in 5 trans people in the EU are at risk of poverty." I would say this parade was pretty serious about inclusivity overall, with floats dedicated to the intersex community; the deaf or otherwise disabled community; and the senior community—and those were just among the floats I saw; I didn't actually see the entire parade. The one thing I would say there was less of here than in the States was floats dedicated to groups of people of color, perhaps because rather than tracking by race, the Netherlands categorizes its population by migration background—and thus Amsterdam loves to boast that its population consists of "over 180 nationalities." But of course a ton of those are White. I'm not saying Amsterdam doesn't have ethnic diversity—you can just look around and see that it does—only that there doesn't seem to be a specific emphasis placed on it. The closest thing I saw to this was the Arbo Health Center float, which had a sign on the side reading, Work in Unity, Embrace the Community, and a blow-up balloon of a rainbow turning into a White and Black man embracing each other. (This was one of several blow-up balloons, incidentally, that it was fun to watch get deflated at the last minute before heading under one of the many canal bridges it would otherwise not fit to pass under.)
These guys were all standing right behind us at the parade where Shobhit and I spent the first three and a half hours, before we went back to the hotel to use the bathroom and rest for a bit—it was just a couple of blocks from here. The two guys in the middle, next to Shobhit, were visiting from Frankfort; their names were Daniel and Darius; the guy on the far right was a rare native of Amsterdam, and his name was Gaap.
It's the Pink Pope!
Another bank contingent—this time Deutsche Bank. And I must say, the people on their float had some impressive choreography and dance moves.
On the float for Dutch Netflix competitor Videoland—some seriously impressive knockers.
One of the famous canal bridges in Amsterdam—covered in hordes of people watching the Canal Parade. We heard they expected a million visitors to Amsterdam for World Pride, and we certainly saw Pride iconography—flags, rainbow coloring, official WorldPride Amsterdam designed flags, etc—literally every neighborhood we went into. Apparently there was no official crowd estimate made for the Canal Parade, though; the most specific reference I can find is "hundreds of thousands."
The parade started at noon, and as noted previously, we went to a spot that was relatively close to the start of its 3-mile (4.8 km) canal route. This parade lasts about six hours, though, and Shobhit and I started to get tired and wanted to go back to our hotel to use the bathroom and rest a bit. The parade began at noon, and we headed back to the hotel at about 3:30. About 50n minutes later, Shobhit still wanted to rest, but I wanted to walk the parade route up to its end. This proved a bit of a challenge, and took me nearly two hours to do—largely because, as I expected, the spectator crowds got larger and thicker the closer to the city center (and thus the end of the parade route) I got. Combine that with the very narrow streets of Amsterdam's Canal Belt, and there were multiple stretches of blocks where the crowd got nuts-thick, as was the case in the photo above. I was just trying to get a shot of that statue with the Pride paraphernalia on it, but the rest of the shot is fairly indicative of the chaos of the sardine-thick crowds I had to very slowly squeeze my way through two or three times.
Sunday, August 2 World Pride Street Parties What do you think? Should I get this outfit to wear at our next summer office picnic?
There were countless events for World Pride Amsterdam, which technically lasted from Saturday, July 25 to Saturday, August 8—we did not arrive until Sunday, July 26. Many of these events were paid, ticketed events, which tended to sell out, but that was fine; our experience with three different World Prides now (Sydney 2023; Washington, D.C. 2025; Amsterdam 2026) has been that there are more than enough free events to attend—such as the several Street Parties over the three days of the weekend when the annual Canal Parade occurs. Since Shobhit had not come along with me when I returned to walk the rest of the parade route (where the parade was so slow that I quickly passed the contingents where we left off, even though I had left for nearly an hour), I stopped and checked out a couple of them on my walk back to the hotel: the one at Beursplein (which had the best music and fun stage entertainment—fair warning, some stocky men's bare asses in jockstraps at that link), and the main stage at Dam Square. The first was where I learned you cannot bring water into any of these events, and I had not drank any of the tumbler of water I had with me, so I quickly chugged the entire thing—surprisingly easy to do after all the hours in the sun that day. Many of the Street Parties occurred on two days of that weekend, nine on Friday and ten on Saturday; there was just one, the Main Stage party at Dam Square, on Sunday. I returned to the Dam Square party with Shobhit on Sunday, and we actually went there twice, once in the afternoon and again in the evening, when there was a pretty spectacular show with women handing fire. Anyway, in the afternoon Shobhit bought a couple of beers just so we could get a couple of these commemorative World Pride cups, which I didn't even realize until we got back to the hotel actually had two different designs. I wish they sold more than just beer in these cups (they did sell cocktails, but would not put those in the cups), but I was still delighted to have gotten them.
Trans Made Market We did not spend a ton of time at the Trans Made Market, only about 20 minutes, but I'm still really glad we went out of our way to check it out. I loved that something like this was part of the World Pride events. The event hosted about 30 booths of trans merchants and artists, and we bought a delicious brownie at one, and really tried to buy a jar of jam at another, but they could not accept credit cards, only cash (and we never dealt with Euros in cash at all) or an app called Tikkie, which is the Dutch equivalent of Venmo. They said they could do PayPal, on which I do have an account, but I have not used it in decades and do not have the app on my phone, which probably would not have worked anyway as I only ever used wfi while in Europe, which was not available in Oosterpark, the park where the event occurred (about a mile southeast of the parade route). When we left, we passed a young woman just outside the park wearing a T-shirt that read HOT PEOPLE SUPPORT TRANS RIGHTS. I'm not even attracted to women, but I I would still say this woman was objectively hot. I don't know why I didn't stop to ask to take her picture; I'm sure she would have happily posed for one. Now all I have is this written paragraph to keep the memory alive!
Thursday, August 6 World Pride Village Again after three World Prides we have attended, there are certain things they all have in common, but with certain variations and local flavors. "Pride Village" is one of them, and to be perfectly honest, the Pride Villages in Sydney were the best—probably because they also doubled as street parties, and were much larger in size and scope. The World Pride Village in Amsterdam was much more chill and, at least on the first day we attended (these occurred each day Tuesday-Saturday of the final weekend of World Pride, but we were in Brussels Monday-Thursday of that week), somewhat sparsely attended. I still kind of liked the chill vibe, especially the wading pool with floaties right inside the main entrance. If you look closely in the above shot, you'll see that I am largely soaked—my shorts were not designed to be two different colors; one side is darker because I fell into the water, leaving only about a quarter of them dry, and about half my shirt got soaked as well. We found these three floaties that were all strapped together, and getting on them was a little awkward, so I slipped off at first and went right into the water. Had I known this would happen, I would have worn my swimming trunks. Anyway once I figured out how to stay on this balloon pegasus (a nice match with my Pride Unicorn T-shirt bought at Seattle Pride a couple of years ago) without falling off, lounging there for a while on a warm day was rather pleasant.
There was a small stage at the Pride Village, which pointedly featured local, Dutch artists. One was a popular lesbian rap and hip-hop duo called LIONSTORM, who informed the crowd they are a couple during their set. One was clearly a bit more butch and one a bit more femme, the latter wearing a revealing outfit (sometimes even turning around to wiggle her mostly-covered butt at the audience) while doing most of the singing and sometimes screaming; the former ended their set by jumping into the crowd and encouraging them to run into each other. Some of their tracks really weren't my jam, but some others had really great, danceable beats. Next, and pictured above, was Dutch trans singer Alice Olsthoorn, whose set I thought was fantastic, even though I could understand none of it as she performed it entirely in Dutch. But again, pretty great beats regardless of the language, and she even seemed to have surprisingly intergenerational appeal (that's going to be Shobhit and me in 25 years). The photo above also amuses me because that guy in the shorts was really into it, and dancing pretty vigorously when I took the shot. Side note! We had already noticed the guy seen to the right earlier, wearing his CLUB CONFESSIONS AMSTERDAM WORLD PRIDE MUSIC FESTIVAL T-shirt, where apparently Madonna did a 30-minute set, and we missed it! That said, it apparently took place at 2:30 a.m., and how 67-year-old Madonna (she'll be 68 on August 16) can handle that, I'll never know—to be fair, even when I was young I could never stay up that late. And I still don't regret not buying tickets to any of the paid World Pride events, and Madonna is very likely to tour her stunningly fantastic new album, and you can bet I'll go to that.
Saturday, August 8 World Pride March Another typical element of World Pride: it features both a Pride Parade and a Pride March, as separate events. In both Sydney and Amsterdam these occurred a week apart; for some reason in Washington, D.C. last year they occurred a day apart, on Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend. In the cases of Sydney and Amsterdam, though, this gave us time for a detour of traveling during the week in between—we went to South Australia during this time in 2023 to visit my Uncle David and his wife Mary Ann; and this year we took three days in Brussels. The Pride March typically happens on the final day of World Pride events, and the only thing to happen after the March finished in Amsterdam was the closing night concert, which we did not go to. We walked a lot on this day, as the March was not set to begin until 4:30 p.m. and we took a long walk around the Canal Belt first. This walk plus the Pride March was 7.4 miles; the Pride March itself had a route that stretched 2.5 miles (4 km). This was a very different route from the Canal Parade, this time actually occurring on the streets, and starting on President Kennedylaan ("President Kennedy Avenue") about 1.5 miles (2.53 km) from the outer rim of the Canal Belt, or 2.6 miles (4.3 km) from the center of it; and ending at Museumplein—which was where three of the initial museums were that we went to in our first leg of visiting Amsterdam. When we gathered near the front of the crowd for the Pride March, we happened to meet the guy in the photo above, Gert—he is from South Africa, and is heavily involved in InterPride and the planning of World Pride Cape Town, set to occur in 2028. InterPride is a collective of 375 Pride Organizations from around the world, they are where the votes come from to decide locations of World Pride events, and they would have been who decided to set the first-ever African World Pride in 2028. Of course Shobhit and I also plan to go to that, and amidst our many questions about it with Gert, we learned that they will not host World Pride during their usual annual Pride events as usually happens; in this case it would have been February, when we were told the weather is not as ideal; they have chosen to set this one in October. This actually reconfigures our long-term travel planning, because we had pushed ringing in the New Year in Sydney to 2029 due to how soon after December February is, but with World Pride Cape Town actually happening in October, we can pull the next Australia trip back to late December 2027 / early January 2028 again, which makes me very happy.
We also met a couple, named Vincent and Charlie, who told us they have been going to Provincetown, Massachusetts annually for many years—this made them a very good resource for us, as that is where we plan to go next year for our anniversary trip in June. We got a lot of tips from them, and may even get a better chance at booking at the Bed & Breakfast they stay at if we drop their names. They were also a big part of a group near the front of the Pride March who carried this huge rainbow Pride flag, just a portion of a flag apparently 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) long, and Shobhit managed to snag a spot helping to carry the flag along the entire route. This delighted him endlessly.
I got a lot of great photos at the Pride March, but I'll leave you with this one: a queer version of the European Union flag, which I really loved. I ran ahead a bit to get this shot, and I must have taken five or six shots waiting for the flag to stretch in the wind enough to get a sense of its design. It was worth the effort! As was, of course, everything we did for World Pride Amsterdam 2026. [posted 10:56am]