Oakland Pride: Dance Your Soul Out

Confession time: I missed Oakland Pride parade. After an amazing week in NYC with the mind-blowing DapperQ fashion show, I craved to have a little drink with my friends in Oakland, and out of the one drink, turned two, and three and slowly we had our own little pub crawl going – which was amazing besides the fact that of course I took the wrong train and was stranded at some Oakland outskirt (including a guy running up to me telling me that I could get killed any second, thanks for that again). So following this adventurous first evening, I felt a 10:30 am start was pushing it.

After a long prelude in the morning, also known as getting my life back together, I finally made it down to Oakland around 3:00 pm to join the little festival. It is apparent that Oakland Pride is still in its baby-shoes, but because of that, it still has the community feel to it that a lot of Prides have lost. One thing that I noticed immediately and should be proven later on as true, Oakland folks know how to have a party – no shy waiting on the sideline: everyone is up for a dance and as you know I appreciate a good dancing session: from twerking competitions to happy salsa encounters. Admittedly, it was a bit too full and too much moving back and forth, so we decided to go to a party called SouLovely at the Parish – and thank god I did. I don’t recall the last time I had so much fun at a party. The place was filled with beautiful humans, great energies and the music was on point. Run into so many friends from last time, which made my night. In general people were so friendly, it probably didn’t hurt that I run into one of  the NYC sweethearts again who knew every other person.

It is now almost a week later and I still cannot get over the party. So even though I missed most of the pride, I think it might have been experience-wise one of the best events I attended this summer. If I get the chance I will for sure come back, if not to Pride itself then most certainly to Oakland, cause Oakland stole my heart already the last time. Watch this space….