Koninginnengag, The Queen's Day. It is a national holiday in the Netherlands, a celebration for Queen Beatrix. Basically, all the people dress in orange and get drunk or high or both.
I was really looking forward to the Queen's Day to see how people celebrate it and as long as i have heard it is a lot of fun. It was indeed. The only downside of it was the smell of urine on the streets and walking on garbage and class. My teacher recommended not to ride a bike in the city about three days after the Queen's Day, because of the class on the streets where you break your tires for sure.
As a tourist, i did not go to a certain party or club ( which all were full anyway) but just wanted to walk around the city to see what's going on. Partying was absolutely everywhere, on the streets, balcony's, windows, doorsteps and of course on the canals.
There was music everywhere. Either the bars or pubs had turned their music up, outdoor DJ's were playing different mixes, some street performers were trying to make money with their guitar, drums or with any other musical instrument and then there were the drunk people singing as loud as possible.
Because on Queen's day, Amsterdam is completely crowded it is a good opportunity to make money. Firstly, if you work at a bar, for example, you get double pay. Then a lot of people on the streets took out all of their old junk, set them nicely in front of their house door with some extremely low prices and the money making could start. You could get old school clothes with one euro piece easily. Another way to make money is to set up a wall, cut a hole in it so that you could put your face through it and invest money into buying eggs and then sell them to people to throw at your face.
Actually, the celebration of the Queen's Day started the day before on the Queen's Night. Some people were already in orange, drunk and/or high and partying. All the souvenir shops make the most money probably because all the people are coming to buy something orange for the Queen's day. Even some famous brand or classy shops were selling orange clothes, but more neat and pricey. From the souvenir shops, you can buy a lot of funny things. You can find a lot of interesting stuff from the markets as well.
I'm not sure if i would like to walk around breakfast, cakes or Burger King meal on my fingers, but they looked really cool.
Another downside of Queen's Day was of course that the huge crowd will have massive lines for everywhere, especially to the toilet. When The male part of the society was responsible for the urine smell on the streets then the girls waited for infinity in the lines for the bathroom.
Still, Queen's Day was a lot of fun even if you're feet hurt from all the walking.
Labels: Netherlands
