Countries Starting with S: Switzerland, Part 1 (of 2)

Last weekend I was reminded of one of the great benefits of moving to Stockholm. Not only are there what Stockholm and Sweden have to offer, but also I now have a jumping off point for so many other places that remain unexplored to me, relative to North America. For example, since last weekend was my last chance to take a trip before school starts, I used the time to visit a friend in Zürich, Switzerland. I think I’d been to Switzerland before, but that would have been when I was four years old; so it was virtually my first time to the country. Last weekend was also Street Parade, which is the largest open-air rave event in Europe. Plus, there were two other dance/electronica music festivals in the city, and the three events drew an enormous number of visitors for the weekend.

Pride Festival

The entire last week was Pride Festival in Stockholm. This makes it the largest Pride festival in Scandinavia, and in some ways much larger than the one’s I’ve seen anywhere else. Most of the activity happened at a city park near Hornstull, where I lived in 2004, so I didn’t really see much of it for most of last week (I even forgot it was going on until Thursday or Friday).

But on Saturday, I really couldn’t miss it. …

Tall Ships Festival

The Tall Ships Races stopped in Stockholm this past weekend. The Races are held every year between four cities around Europe. This year there were two races, one in the Mediterranean and one in the Baltic. The Baltic race stopped in Stockholm for its third of four stops — the first time in some six or seven years since it last did so — so the City threw a big festival to welcome them. Here are some photos of the ships. …