Koninginnedag 2007 in Amsterdam

Happy belated Queen's Day everyone! Wow.... I went to Amsterdam with almost all of the other exchange students to celebrate one of the most popular holidays in the Netherlands. Queen's Day, or Koninginnnedag takes place every year on April 30th to celebrate the birthday of the Queen. Now here's where most people get confused... April 30th is not the birthday of the ruling Queen Beatrix, it is actually the day of her mother's birthday, Queen Juliana. Queen Beatrix was smart however and realized that Queen's day wouldn't be much fun in January (her actual birthday) so when she took the throne she decided to keep her mother's birthday as the national holiday.

Now that you've had your history lesson, I'll get into the details of the actual celebrations. On this day, people have the day off of work and of school (whoohooo!). Most families will get together and have celebrations together but a large percentage (usually young peoples like me!) will go into the main cities to celebrate in street party style. Amsterdam of course is where the biggest parties are but Utrecht and Den Haag also have really good celebrations. Basically every city however, including Tilburg, will have their own celebrations outdoors.

The party begins on the eve of Koninginnedag and not wanting to be left out, I also started my celebration on the night of April 29th. A bunch of us exchangies went into the centre of Tilburg where a big stage was set up in the middle of the square and everybody had a great time dancing the night away. I can't wait to get home and show all of you the new "cool" jump dance that is all the craze right now - it works perfectly with techno music!

By 9am about 50 exchange students made it to the train station to Amsterdam! We had good intentions of trying to stick together throughout the day... but that was just IMPOSSIBLE!! As far as the eye could see there was people, people and more people! I swear the entire population of Holland was in Amsterdam that day! What made things even more confusing was that 99% of these people were all dressed in orange and the other ten in the red, white and blue of the Dutch flag! Don't worry, I made sure to wear my amazing Holland outfit as well!

We had made no plans as to what to do in the city and just allowed the day to take us wherever! In almost every square and intersection some sort of stage was set up blaring Dutch tunes and techno music. In Dam's square there was carnival rides set up and everything! Periodically throughout the day we met up with other students and just went from square to square, party to party enjoying the Queen's birthday. We were able to score a lot of free hats and things. Open markets and venders were selling every possible Holland related souvenir one could want. One particularily interesting venders was selling chainsaws!! The wildest things I saw that day was the canals..... they were absolutely PACKED with people dancing away on the party boats - at one point - I couldn't even tell that a canal was a canal because the water was completely invisible with all the boats!

The grand finale of the day was when somehow, all of the exchange student were able to meet up in the large grassy area for a live concert by the Van Gogh museum. Because the partying (and beverage consumption) starts quite early in the day for many people - the festivities die down by early evening. Only the truly hardcore tend to celebrate late into the night. I however, was ready for bed and enjoyed the relaxing train ride home. It was one of the most fun days I have had in the Netherlands so far - Happy Birthday Beatrix!!