Zurich turns into one big party

Saturday was Zurich’s annual Street Parade, a gigantic techno party which takes over all of downtown. In addition to the parade with floats blaring out dance music, there were several stages with DJs blaring out dance music, and pretty much every restaurant and bar in the downtown area seemed to have hired a DJ to blare out dance music. I guess what I’m trying to say here is, there was a lot of dance music. Attendees were all decked out in their clubbing finest, and they made it clear that despite recent events, Zurich actually likes bare boobies.

In the afternoon we went out to people-watch, take photos and mingle amongst the 800,000 or so revelers. The atmosphere was for the most part cheerful and drunken, although we did see one fight break out (unfortunately there were others, including a fatal stabbing, during the day). We then met up with some friends to party on into the night (which included a ferris wheel ride, a little dancing, and a whole lot of techno music). Usually we’re not the late-night partying type, but on the rare occasion that the Zurich trams run all night, one just has to take advantage.

It’s such a change to see Zurich be so loud, so colorful, and so dirty. Of course clean up was quick – the clean up crews were out in full force before we even made it home, and the city was back to normal by Sunday afternoon. There is talk about this being the last Street Parade, since the organizers are having difficulty finding sponsors. I certainly hope that’s not the case. Street Parade is definitely my favorite Zurich celebration. What can I say? I prefer hot pink feather boas and sparkly platform shoes to alphorns and old men on horses.

More Street Parade 2007 photos here.