BERLIN, GERMANY — Now that it's over, I am asking myself just what the Love Parade exactly was. I know this: It lasted a weekend. Its official theme was "Music is the Key" and it played to a backdrop of nonstop techno. It was hugely commercial in its sponsorship and hugely successful in its attendance. How huge? 1.5 million attended, they say, 50 percent more than the previous year, and a grandly exponential increase from the 50 people who attended the 1989 event that touched off an annual tradition. The figure of 1.5 million, courtesy of Berlin's Technical University, was for the parade itself, but the parties began the night before.

"No UFOs" was one such affair, beginning Friday night and continuing through Monday morning. Prices began at DM 25 for Friday and rose to DM 40 for Saturday and DM 35 for Sunday. The organizers rented a partially condemned warehouse along the main river, clearing out the bottom two floors; no window panes means lots of ventilation, and no furniture mean lots of dance space. Furniture consists of inflated pink sofas lining the walls on the second floor.

Other than the sofas, ambience is achieved through ample black lighting and an abundance of sponsored merchandise, such as a half dozen ultra-compact cars, courtesy of Ford Motor Company. One of the examples is out back in the chill-out area, hanging from a crane above the river. It seems a fitting backdrop to the nearby hotdog and cappuccino vendors and the porta-potties, where a pee sets you back one half mark.

Above the bar, which charges DM 5 for your drink whether its beer or coke, is a neon sign with "Ford.Moto.Music" in stylized letters. Next to the neon hangs a banner for MTV, another sponsor. MTV occasionally shines intense white lights on the dance floor, making the crowd wince and squirm before the rolling cameras - it's no wonder people can't dance on television.

When the MTV cameramen are not pushing through the crowd, the other sponsors usually are, with the Red Bull men giving away tepid samples of their energy drink and the Chupa Chups girls giving out lollipops and lollipop-shaped giant inflatable toys. The inflatable lollipops go well with fluorescent inflatable plastic backpacks worn by every third or fourth woman in attendance. Inflatable backpacks...? Such distractions...but the music is of such exceptional quality that few seem to notice.

The next day is Love Parade Saturday, beginning with a train, the S-1 inbound from Oranienberg. The train is not air conditioned, and the atmosphere is dense with sweaty steam. Teenagers pack the cars, not a person over twenty, and they have all boarded long ago. They come from the countryside, the countless villages and not-so-small towns hidden by the shadows of Berlin. Most are drinking no-name beer from half-liter cans. The floor is strewn with empties. Germans like to come prepared. One mid-teen male wears a black mesh tank-top with below-the-knee shorts and jack boots. If Germans are wearing shorts, that means today will be ?#!@ hot.

Another seventeenish male sports a purple tie-dye shirt, with the bottom two-thirds of the torso cut or ripped away. He is not as thin as the other one. Their accents are heavy, their demeanor mischievous: they are already targeting their SuperSoakers. They are shooting females. One such female is wearing a transparent blue blouse with a strapless bra underneath. The water makes the blouse stick to her skin. Her seat-mate wears a black t-shirt; she has painted the words "love parade" in script letters on her cheek. The seat-mate responds to the soaking by blowing her whistle. Whistles? Oh god, whistles. Now everybody seems to have one. The ears begin to ring. Foreshadowing. The kids are tweaked. Drugs? Chances are.

Two p.m. Saturday is when it starts, though most seem to have arrived early. Camping out? The parade route is clear: about two miles along Unter den Linden, the main east-west avenue through Berlin's central park, the Tiergarten. On the one end is the Brandenburg Gate, gateway to East Berlin, and on the other end is Ernst Reuter Platz, a central West Berlin artery.

The parade begins at both ends, each side meeting midway at the Victory Column, then circling the Column before finishing where the other end began. Heading west on foot past the Brandenberg Gate, one cannot grasp this aerial perspective. One sees only people, people, people everywhere, blowing whistles, drinking beer, smoking joints, selling pills, screaming, packing closer together. The Victory Column is barely visible in the distance; can one really make it that far?

After a good half-hour of dancing, stumbling, and falling forward, the parade floats are finally within sight. The typical float design is no-frills and functional: big trucks with the tops of their trailers as makeshift dance floors. Most decoration is provided by the dancers and the giant speakers surrounding them: this is the Love Parade, not the Rose Bowl. Nobody dances like this at the Rose Bowl. A float is rated by the talent of its djs and the intensity of its dancers. One float seems to have particularly intense dancers, some of whom are giving a strip show.

Turns out this is a porn float; supposedly there's a movie being filmed inside the trailer. No way to confirm the filming inside, but no way to deny the breasts bouncing to break beats on top. The breasts are a crowd magnet, and soon the truck cannot move for the throngs of dancers. The float passes under a television crane, and now a dilemma: dance for the crowd or for the cameras?

Push past to another float, this one from Belgium, and before me are three huge men dancing along side. Their bodies are hardly contained by matching black "Front 242" T-shirts (Belgian music's claim to fame) complimented by glossy shaved heads, gold earrings, leather pants. Passing us is a 30ish Turkish man towing a stainless-steel fridge-box on a hand truck. Coke and beer: 5 DM, he can't sell fast enough.

Shirtless German teenagers spray water on their girlfriends. Girlfriends giggle and blow their whistles. A shirtless American pours beer on his girlfriend. Girlfriend protests, then girlfriend removes shirt, dances in bra. These were the first Americans sighted, but more sightings come later: girls with L.L. Bean shorts, Gap t-tops, Birkenstock sandals, long hair, banded in back. They look confused, vexed: what the hell? This parade ruins the Rick Steves Plan.

The approaching Victory Column produces another dilemma: head east or west? The eastbound floats are overlapping with the westbound floats. One parade, moving two directions at once, the crowd sandwiched in between. When facing each other, do two sets of pounding speakers cancel each other out? Pushed against one set of speakers, the answer is clear. My shirt shakes to the beat. A dj's voice can be heard: do you want more bass? No. The crowd screams: jaaaaa.

Four p.m., open air, sun beating down, and gasping for air, for space: time for a break. Slither to the edge of the mob, into the greenery of the Tiergarten park. Sitting along the bank of a small pond, a couple of 20-ish women are finishing a bottle of cheap sparkling wine. Though they are from Berlin, this is their first time at the Love Parade. Are most people here from Berlin? They don't think so. What do they think? They think it is all very large. They think it's great. They are wearing glitter around their eyes.