This year’s Queen’s day came and went again yesterday. I remember four years ago, as I walked out of central station in Amsterdam, having arrived there with Dennis, we saw these four helpless Japanese tourists looking for a hotel, dragging their lugguage behind them, wide eyed and mortified at what was happening. It seemed that somebody forgot to tell them what Queen’s day entails, or perhaps forgot to inform them altogether.
For those of you who don’t know, Queen’s day is sort of like Mardi Gras, mixed with a big garage sale, to celebrate the birthday of our Queen. It’s a national holiday, so everyone has the day off, and it’s a day where people, traditionally, sell all their old crap on the street. However, it’s slowly turned into a day in which everyone drinks and gets high, dancing in the streets. A day where everyone is everyone’s friend and, depending on the weather, everyone goes outside to have fun.
The weather was beautiful, but sadly my stomach was a bit upset, so I did no drinking or partying, but I did enjoy the day. Most of the day was spent at Sam’s, chilling and listening to the many boats going past on the canal in front of her apartment, with people on them, dancing, singing and listening to loud music. Walked around for a couple of hours with Evaand Frank, which was really very nice, seeing all the people so cheerful and happy. It really is an experience that I find very hard to put into words. I don’t do the coolness, and madness, of it all much justice with my words. It’s something to be experienced instead of talked about.
Days like these make me so happy to live here. This place is like no other place on earth.
This morning, as I was on my way home from Sam’s place, I saw the city…it was in ruin. The only people out were the city’s sanitation who were doing overtime, tourists who were trying to find their way to their hotel, wondering what happened to them the previous day, swearing that they’ll never drink that much again, or take that much X, and me. :)
