Every gay and his pup was in Amsterdam for World Pride this year. As I knew a few friends who were going, it became the main impetus for me deciding to jet off to Europe and the big event I built the rest of the trip around.

Despite being so integral to the whole adventure, the experience itself wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d expected.

Perhaps that’s the danger of high expectations.

Having said that, I still had a good time. Just not as good a time as I’d imagined I would – or, perhaps, as good a time as it looked like everyone else was having on social media.

I had an earlyish flight from Berlin to Amsterdam on Thursday, so by 11am I was already at my hotel. Friends had taken the nine-hour train over, which I’d contemplated, but in the end, I was glad to just get there quickly and have some time to decompress.

There was so much going on for World Pride that I got a little overwhelmed by choice and fear of missing out. In the end, though, I did far less than I’d expected.

That evening I caught up with a large group of Melbourne friends, many of whom had been to Tomorrowland in Belgium the weekend before. I’ve always wanted to go to the festival, so it was good to hear their perspective. It’s massive, you walk everywhere and it’s exhausting, such was the report. They’d enjoyed it but didn’t feel the need to rush back again the following year. Perhaps one day I’ll get there too.

There were about 13 of us for dinner. Steve and Yuan had chosen a restaurant and I was the first to arrive with Kelvin. We managed to secure a couple of tables, but the manager was – understandably – getting increasingly frustrated that most of the group hadn’t arrived and threatened to give them away. It was all a bit stressful, but eventually everyone appeared, we ate a bunch of food, caught up and headed off.

Most people went back to their hotels, but a few of us continued to the gay street, which was RAMMED with people. Outside one of the bars I somehow bumped into my sister’s friend, after both of us had messaged her saying the chances of us actually finding each other in Amsterdam that weekend were slim.

There was also a group of about 40 Australians, easily identifiable from a mile away, something about their mannerisms and of course the accent.

I stayed for a bit, but between the noise and the fact I wasn’t drinking much, I eventually retreated to my hotel. Fortunately, it was hosting its own street party until 11pm, so I still got a little more Pride before heading to bed.

On Friday I caught up with Jon from Minnesota – honestly, the way the gays migrated from Berlin to Amsterdam was like wildebeest crossing the Serengeti – and finished off an assignment that was due on Monday. Yes, I was still studying and working while on this expedition.

That evening I caught up with Jett, Declan, V and Rob for drinks and dinner. It was nice to have a calmer catch-up and hear about what they’d been doing on their own travels around Europe.

I’d also been given a free ticket to the World Pride Music Festival, which was taking place across two days. I’d been hesitant to go – despite there being a DJ playing who I really wanted to see – because it was expensive and the whole thing hadn’t quite grabbed me. Plus, a New Yorker I’d met in Berlin had told me the promoter’s events usually weren’t that great.

But free is free, so I didn’t have much to lose.

I caught up with the Melbourne boys there and danced with them in the main space for a while before gravitating towards a smaller dance floor where the music was much more my scene. I felt a little out of sorts, probably just tired, but stuck around until Cristobal Pesce came on at 1:30am – and boy, was I glad I did.

I’d seen a few of his clips on Instagram – he’s very cute – but his set was awesome. He played for about 90 minutes and I loved it. I had a great dance while also bumping into people I’d met elsewhere on my travels, including a guy I’d met in Paris only a couple of weeks earlier.

Once Cristobal finished, I hightailed it out of there.

Saturday was the canal parade. When I first came to Amsterdam about 20 years ago with Glen and a couple of friends, we’d had to stay out near the airport because accommodation in the city was exorbitant and almost everything was booked out. It wasn’t until we went into the city that weekend and happened to see the very last decorated boat floating down a canal that we discovered we’d accidentally come to Amsterdam during Pride.

Lucky us!

This time I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

I met up with Meng sometime around 1 or 2pm, while he was watching the parade from a bridge about halfway along the route. People were everywhere. Most of the best viewing spots had either been claimed or sectioned off into paid areas, so after about 15 minutes I decided to start walking towards the beginning of the parade route.

It turned out really well.

I got moving, picked up some drinks from a supermarket along the way, saw the floats from all sorts of different angles and ended up seeing quite a bit of the city at the same time. People had gone to enormous effort with their floats and costumes – giant inflatable figures of Trump and Putin kissing, a wild jungle theme, wedding dresses, the whole shebang. Many of the floats also had to duck down to squeeze underneath Amsterdam’s very low bridges, adding an extra engineering challenge to the whole spectacle.

It was a lot of fun, and I eventually reached the beginning of the route just as the final boat was setting off.

That evening I went to Funhouse with my friends and had a great time dancing until 6am. I could have gone to the second night of the World Pride Music Festival instead, where Madonna and Kylie made cameos, along with apparently Adam Lambert and Courtney Act, but I wasn’t unhappy with my decision.

The gays went wild for it, though.

Unsurprisingly, I did very little on Sunday. I got a late breakfast, slept, did laundry, and in the evening met Meng and Luke for dinner at a really nice Dutch restaurant.

That was about all I could handle.

I did have quite a lot of FOMO about missing a couple of other parties during the day and that night, but realistically I don’t think I would have lasted very long at any of them. Sometimes less is more.

Though if less is more, imagine how much more more would be.

And that was the end of my World Pride experience. I left for Belgium on Monday. In hindsight, perhaps I would have stayed a little longer, as World Pride continued for another week, but other places were calling (including Iceland).

I’m glad I went. Amsterdam was wild, the weather was pretty good, I got to spend time with friends and there were some genuinely excellent moments. It may not have been the enormous, life-changing Pride experience I’d somehow built it up to be in my head, but it didn’t really need to be. Definitely worth it.