Mr. Gay World 2010: Charl van den Berg: THE VERY LATE UPDATE!

Heya!

Ok, so first order of the day is to apologise for my VERY late posting. its been quite a while, but lemme explain!

About three weeks ago i boarded the plane for another trip to a foreign country. This time i set my course for Berlin, where i was to attend the Christopher Street Parade. Now for those of you who don't know, Christopher Street is in the West village, New York City. this used to be the hub of gay life in the 70's. It is also the street on which you would find Stonewall Inn. its patrons started a series of riots in 1969 and this is seen to be the initiation of the gay libration movement. In short, today, we have have these guys, and Christopher street to thank for our Gay Pride, and Berlin hosts one of the Biggest Christopher Street Parades in the world.

So anyway. it just seemed right that i go. Now this was not a social call. It was the first time i got to sit down with Eric and Tore, Directors of Mr Gay World, after the competition. I arrived on the Thursday morning and was accomomdated at the lovely Kempinski Hotel Adlon, thanks for that Bruce, it was truly such a great experience. On the Friday evening, once everybody had arrived from their respective countries, MR GAY EUROPE, Sergio Lara also being there, we attended a VIP Evening hosted by AIR FRANCE/KLM at the lovely Kempinski Adlon. here we got to meet with Celebrities and the like from Germany and it was an honour to be there as Mr Gay World representing the Greater Gay community.

The next morning we had just enough time for an early breakfast before Sergio, Eric and I headed off to Patrick Hellmann or our fitting. From the fitting it was straight back to the hotel to drop off our gear, then head off to the start of the parade where Sergio and i hopped onto the first Float and so began the four hour procession to the endline and the Brandenburger Gate, where a big concert would be held that evening with internatioal Dj's and artists, but our duties were not done yet, we still had a photoshoot! Back at the Hotel Sergio and I got out of our pride gear and into the suits for the Kempinski Shoot, in the Presidential Suite. Now to give you an idea, this suite is the very suite that the Late King, MJ, dangled his baby rom the window. so ther was a certain sence of awe about it. :)

Long story short, Saturday came and went and and I finally got into bed at about 3pm having sat in meetings for most of the night.

Sunday morning, was my last day in Berlin, so i managed to get some sight seeing done and get my hands on a few gifts for the folks back home. i made it back to the hotel just in time to pack, take a few more pics and head on down to the concierge where my ride was waiting. with my total trip coming to 4 days, i had a lovely long flight back home to think about what the weekend was all about. What did i learn? What will the fruit be from this trip?