Koninginnedag

April 30th was Koninginnedag, the day the Dutch proudly wear orange and celebrate the Queen's birthday. It's actually not the current Queen's birthday, but her grandmother's. But instead of changing the national holiday with each monarch, April 30th is the day any Queen's birthday is celebrated . . . and is it ever. We had heard stories/warnings, but obviously you have to see it to believe it.

The party starts the night before. Because The Hague is the royal city, there is a huge celebration the night of the 29th, called Koninginnenacht. The entire city centre becomes the party with djs set up in squares throughout, and a huge fair. You just kind of wear a paper crown and walk around and dance and walk and dance, and walk and dance, etc.





And then the next day (the real holiday) we journeyed to Koninginnedag's ground zero: Amsterdam. I had heard many stories of the sea of orange that would greet us once we stepped out of the train station.


We traded the crowns for these bril and wandered and watched Dutch people having the time of their lives.


Singlehandedly the craziest/most bizarre/fascinating thing about Koninginnedag were the party boats. Anyone who owned a boat found a dj, invited all their friends, blasted techno music and danced like orange maniacs. The bigger the boats, the bigger the party. There were so many boats on the canals that you couldn't even see the canals. The people watching was amazing.


This one's for you, Dad:

Another funny feature of Koninginnedag are the vrijmarkts (the free markets). On this one day, anyone is allowed to set up shop in the centre and sell their crap. So in the midst of the party, there are all these garage sales. At the end of the day, some people just walk away from their crap, and that's when the real deals are to be found.



Because of all the crazy partying, and all the abandoned vrijmarkts and all the people who just don't care, Amsterdam was disgusting by about 5pm. We could not get over how much trash was on the ground. The entire city was a dump.


Regardless, it was so, so fun.


We love the European "entire city is a party" parties (and we've definitly been to a few good ones.) I'm going to miss them.