Helsinki Pride 2013 was a blast!

I can honestly say that this was the best pride I've ever attended and I've been to 3 parades in NYC! I had the whole week to soak in on all the gay and that's exactly what I did! Starting from Monday with the roller derby, Tuesday with 2 lectures and a movie, Wednesday with Korkeasaari Zoo in the afternoon and almost gay walk around Helsinki (guide didn't have a micro- or megaphone and there was way too many people to hear anything so we decided to go for a drink instead) and the Miss Gay Finland final in the evening, Thursday with meeting with friends and Friday with Linnanmäki with Ella, a marriage equality lecture in the afternoon and Women's Party that night and the icing on the cake being yesterday's parade and picnic and the party at night...

One of my favorite part of this week was my talk with the new Miss Gay Finland, Leena Luuri before the parade started. Finland's got a woman who can represent the lesbian community and she was just as beautiful and sweet in person as she was on stage. Well spoken, and the fact that in her "coronation speech" she was talking about small towns and cities needing lgbt support groups and activities and how important it is to not forget those places just because they have small seta's or no seta's. Basically putting my thoughts into words. And that's what I told her when I went to speak to her. And when I told her about Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride, she offered to help if she could. I'm glad the panel chose her.

Finnish member of the parliament from my home town, Sanni Grahn-Laasonen walked with us. We had a really good discussion on how to promote Gay Cafe and how very important this group is for Forssa area. We also briefly touched on marriage equality and how she thinks the vote will go when the bill is introduced.

Our super amazing logo!

Kirsi and Toni at the rendezvous point chilling before the parade. Notice Kirsi's tuned tee!

 The whole Gay Cafe gang with few guest stars. One of my favorite pictures from the whole day!

Me in all my glory and Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride stuff.

I sent this picture of us to our home town newspaper as they publish readers pictures on Sundays and they published it today!

 Another picture from our photo shoot at the park!

Heidi has a birthday tomorrow so for her birthday her friend baked her a cake! How cool is this?

At 5:35 you can see Gay Cafe at the parade!

Yle Uutiset also had a segment about the pride. On their website they had few pictures from the parade and Gay Cafe's logo can clearly be seen from it, as well as Heidi and Ella. The US ambassador to Finland was also marching at the parade. He's a cool dude!

Like I said before, Gay Cafe was placed with the SETA member organizations and I'm so proud for that. All this is so huge for a small town group like ours. I'll post more pictures and clips if I find any. I can't post any more pictures, as I accidentally shot off my camera as it was transferring pictures to my computer and lost every. single. picture from my camera! Thankfully I uploaded them to Heidi's computer yesterday and she hadn't had a chance of deleting them yet, so she'll send me all of them on a memory stick.

Helsinki pride parade

I got an e-mail today from the parade organizer with a list of the march order. Gay Cafe has been put in with quite the group; we will be surrounded with all the different SETA organizations! And we'll be at the beginning of the the parade. Once again, I'm so proud of our group and what we've been able to achieve in such a short time. I'd still like to see more people participate in the group, but as far as recognition from around Finland goes, we've got it.

We will meet at the left side of the steps of the cathedral between 12:15 and 12:30 on Saturday if you'd like to march with us. You can find us from our Gay Cafe t-shirts and flags.

We went to see roller derby exhibition game today...from what I saw, wasn't really my thing. Tomorrow I'm going to listen a lecture on lgbtiq literature and then we'll go see a movie.  Part of my program for Wednesday is still open, but we are going to watch Miss Gay Finland that night. There are way too many great lectures and happenings going on at the same time to choose from so I'm having problems deciding! It's gonna be a great vacation, the only thing I'm sad about is not seeing my cats this week.

The wet t-shirt race

Suvi-ilta's marathon tomorrow is turning into a wet t-shirt competition. I have a white Forssa Pride t-shirt I'm wearing so if it's raining like it's supposed to...

Dunkin Donuts wants to participate as well.

My Gay Cafe t-shirts finally arrived today! YAY! And they are fabulous! I'm spending the whole week in Helsinki and will be wearing a GC t-shirt every day. Gotta represent! Now the question is, which one should I wear tomorrow for Pirkanmaan Pride?

I think the one in top left corner is my favorite.

All the gay

Gay Cafe had its last meeting for the spring this past Tuesday. We ended up tying the record attendance of 5 people, which I was really happy about. And if you don't include me, none of them were the people who started. I guess in a way it's sad, but it also shows that we have done something right and the word has gotten out.

We are going to Helsinki Pride as a group and we'll be visually pleasing. Not that we, as a people aren't, but we will have flags and and t-shirts with the logo on them. Charlie did a fantastic job with the t-shirts as well, and I might have bought 6...another person who's coming to march with us bought 2...And I've advertised it on the Facebook page as well as with people who have shown interest so we'll be seen. I'm really excited about it but also really proud of the little group we've gathered. And the ideas people have come up with for PR for our group has been really great. I don't see any reason why Gay Cafe wouldn't be around for years to come. And the community and sense of belonging has been great. What I visioned when I started with Forssa Pride and what is happening now through Gay Cafe is exactly what we need in Forssa. Small steps but we'll get there.

If you are so inclined, you can buy a Gay Cafe t-shirt from here. There are 5 different designs, at least 21 color options, t-shirt models for men, girly fit, zip up and pullover hoodies, v-necks etc. And even with the most absurd color matches, the logo comes out nicely. I bought 6 for now, but I will definitely buy hoodies for the fall. I don't get anything from the t-shirts, all proceeds go to the designer, but she has definitely earned every penny and I hope these will be a hit.

The radio interview I gave about Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride before FPP 2.0 was translated into Russian! The leader of the english speaking group I go to in Tampere is Russian and he told me about it. If you are Russian or speak Russian, here is the link for it. My Russian is so rusty these days that I didn't even try to read it. I just saw my name and Forssa and I was happy. And since my friend didn't tell me it saying anything bad, I'm pretty sure it's "straight up" translation of what was written in Finnish. Which at least in the beginning gave the impression I might be transgendered, but whatever. I can't be doing this and be afraid of labels, even if they are the wrong labels.

I'm going back in time in about a weeks time. Or back to the beginning in a way. Putting my gay advocate training in use and Mikko and I are going to a summer camp for 15-16 year olds to talk about sexual and gender minority issues. I had the training in March of 2011 and this will be my first session. I'm excited but also a little afraid. It'll be fine and Mikko is great, but it's the first time jitters.

Pirkanmaa Pride is in 2 weeks. I'm running the 10k in Forssa at 4pm and then head to Tampere for the party. Midsummer is in 3 weeks and my first stint of summer vacation starts from there. I'm heading to Helsinki for the Pride and staying for the week. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this summer and all the gay I can. No regrets and no thinking about the money spent. You only live once! At the end of August I'm going to New Jersey and I'm not sure which will weigh more, me after I've eaten n all the places I wanna eat, or the luggage after the shopping spree I'm going for. Every day I send a place or restaurant to Candice and am like "We need to go here too" or "I wanna eat here too". There's no dieting while I'm there! And I'm organizing a MSU reunion as well. Everybody except one guy has said they're on board, so it'll be great!

The weather has been crazy in Finland for the past few weeks. We usually don't have this consistent heat wave even in July, and this started in May and is continuing for the foreseeable future. I love it, but  it's frigging hot in my apartment. But we do deserve this after the snowy and cold winters we've had for the past few years.

I'll post some pictures of my gay cafe t-shirts and from all the events I'm going this summer soon. Happy Pride month!