Queen's Day - I love you Amsterdam!

If you were ever going to spend 66 hours in Amsterdam. This would be it. Queens Day is a spectacle of mammoth proportions. This from the web;

"Queen's Day (in Dutch: Koninginnedag) in Amsterdam is a unique night and day carnival-like event on 30th of April each year and during the night before – so called Queen's Night (in Dutch: Koninginnenacht). What is special about the Queen's Day, as well as having elements of the huge party across the whole city, it is combined with the market in the streets of the whole city (in Dutch: Vrijmarkt). Queen's Day in Amsterdam attracts each year ca 700 thousands visitors, which makes the city crowded beyond any acceptable norms. Despite overcrowding, the atmosphere on Queen's Day is traditionally relaxed and joyful. Usually mild, not too hot weather makes the Queen's Day the day to be in Amsterdam. To feel the atmosphere on the day please, watch the Queen's Day video .

Queen's Day is also a typical occasion for the world-famous Orange Craze. On this day most of the people wear orange clothing and creative orange accessories. The colour orange is a ubiquitous sight, referring to the name of our royal family, the House of Orange. Everywhere in the city you'll see orange banners, orange colored foods and drinks."



Every street, every square, every canal and every boat is jam-packed with people all wearing orange, all partying and dancing along to the ubiqiutous music pumping through the beer and smoke. I was there last year but this year promised to be even more special. At the last minute, myself and Keg (a friend working in the hostel in Venice with me but originally from Miami) found a pretty cheap ticket to an airport an hour from Brussels. This meant we would have to travel for 12 hours each way, but were confident that was a very small endurance. The juice would definately be worth the squeeze.

Classically, our journey was a fiasco, we woke up an hour late sprinted for our bus, and just made our plane after paying a huge fee to print our boarding passes at the airport (thank you Ryan Air). We did, however, have hours worth of entertainment ridiculing Keg's packing - for three days he decided to bring four pairs of pants,one pair of shorts, 2 shirts and no underwear or socks all in a plastic shopping bag. Dammit Keg!

One of the best times Ive ever had was when I worked on the pub crawl in Amsterdam last year. The Ultimate Party pub crawl attracts close to 2000 revelers every week in summer. Our job was to promote the pub crawl in the day, which entailed cruising around with friends chatting to tourists and persuading them to come party with you, exploring the red light district and then meeting up with the crew at our regular bar for something to eat and drink before the night began. The night was a dream. We would go around pouring vodka shots into the people's mouths, handing out t-shirts, putting on wristbands and all that jazz. Our duties for the night were to dance, drink and socialise and show everyone where the bars and clubs were. We got paid for this. It was a freaky dream.
Our first two nights and days in Amsterdam were spent catching up with the Pub Crawl crew and partying with them. Met up with all the old friends from across the globe and the new additions to the staff. Travelling relatively alone can be tiresome and lonesome at times so it was an awesome two days catching up with all the boys leading up to the main event of Queen's Day.

We woke up scatter-brained and pumped up for the day but we took an age to get into town. On the walk in we found an orange cowboy hat with holes in the peak to put six beer glasses. SOLD! As soon as we had poured the beer we had into the cups we decided to catch a packed tram into town. This proved to be a semi-mistake. Not far into the tram ride I got a tap on the shoulder from a grumpy dwarf lady with grey brown hair and a scowl telling me my beer was all over her little angel. Her little angel, equally grumpy and equally unpleasant to look at seemed completely dry. My drop of beer on her top was difficult to detect. She moaned and hollered and I unenthusiastically apologised. Chill out bitch its Queens Day. A friend with us from back home, Natti-Ice, giggled uncontrollably for the rest of the ride. We weren't in the right mindset to deal with vibe-killing mongrels.

The Pub Crawl boss has a little bachelor pad on Leidsestraat, the main walking street, and had a shindig there in the day with a DJ deck, a view of the throbbing crowds and unlimited beer. We partied there, writing on each others shirts and faces, taking turns DJing and getting into the beer and soon set off for our mission around the festival. En route we spotted two small sisters seling megaphones and bubbleguns. In a moment of weakness I bought the bubblegun only to find out I was duped because it still needed batteries. This travesty was soon overlooked as we discovered our intended destination. In front of the Massive Rijks Museum across the canal and under some trees there was a stage and a DJ playing some crowd-pleasing beats. We were settling in to this place spreading the love and giving out free high-fives when Cat, a livewire Scottish girl, went to give a stranger a high-five celebrating the occasion and the glorious day and he promptly punched her in the face. This asshole was laughing about it when our group of guys was trying to get at him. Nicky, an explosive Irishman who I shared a room with last year, was the most riled up and in his steaming he knocked a girl a few times and so she spat in his face, he then spat in her face. Clearly the vibe here was wrong, we left soon after that.

The main attraction of the day was Tiesto in Museumplein. Tiesto has been voted the best DJ in the world three years in a row, he is considered a pioneer and revolutionised the the DJing scene. In 2008 he became the first DJ to perform at the O2 arena in London as part of his In Search of Sunrise 7 summer tour. (By the way, In Search of Sunrise 8 is in Cape Town this year in 2 weeks on the 15th of May). So we headed to Museumplein to get a taste of the sensation. There were 150 000 people revved up and waiting for Tiesto. He arrived in a Limo and the big screen cameras followed him from the car through backstage onto the stage as the crowd went mad. He started playing as the sun was going down and finished when it was dark. Tiesto didn't disappoint and we spent alot of time on each other's shoulders taking in the crowd and the vibe. He played for only an hour and it went quickly but it was an electric experience. The rest of the night was spent bar-hopping and riding the wave of the day. It was a truly awesome three nights and days and if you are ever in Europe at this time of year, it is a must. Thank you Amsterdam!