Chasing rainbows in Madrid

Our arrival in Madrid coincided with the city’s Fiestas des Orgullo, or Pride Celebration, which it claims is one of the largest in Europe. 

The celebration includes several concerts, a few competitions, and a demonstration on July 1 to demand equal rights for all families. Among the 12 demands are agile and homogeneous adoption processes, the development of equality policies for women’s couples to compensate for the double pay gap, and textbook representation for all families. 

This accounts for the impressive number of Pride decorations that we’ve seen so far. 

Even American establishments are getting in on it. The KFCs and McDonald’s we have passed have all featured decorations of some type. The Starbucks have been mostly silent (at least from the outside), perhaps dealing with the same mixed policies in force in the U.S. 

Many smaller, independent stores have decorations, whether they involve draping flags on their mascots or they are using this week to show off merchandise in a variety of colors. 

Even larger Spanish chain stores added colors to their displays: 

Most impressive are the buildings that have added light accents for this week, such as this one.