Queen's Day 2009

All I can say, Queen's Days celebration rocks! A totally eye opener experience for me! For those whom have missed out Queen's Day all these years (like me), please do get yourself out there and try it! I promised you, it'll be fun!

The day started with sunny blue skies (perfect day for Queen's Day celebration), drove to a friend's place near Amsterdam, 'sardined' into a tram to the city centre and finally arrived at our destination... our first stop at Vondelpark (near the city centre). We wanted to start off real slow and easy.

Queen's Day wasn't all about adults. In this park, the celebration focused specifically on children. We had children selling their old toys, parents junk and making games up and do performances. Nevertheless, the park was filled up with families, party goers etc. It was really nice to see how some of the children were so creative in displaying and selling off their goods ;) Behind the scene, parents were chilling out while their children 'worked' ;)

After all the walk in the park (it was a huge park), we took a lunch pit stop of hamburgers and soft drinks before starting our journey to the city centre.

It was a shock to my system to see so many people crammed up in the little city for an excuse of partying. Everywhere we walked, we saw party goers in orange clothing and some even in funky costumes. Beer kiosks, drinks & food stalls were set up everywhere, mini concert stages were also set up in different parts of the city centre. People were boozing, dancing, eating & having a good time! Mind you, we only managed to cover 4 party areas. Even that, it has taken a toll on us. Some of the streets, you can just forget about even thinking of squeezing yourself in, it was impossible to walk thru! (our little city map of all the party areas)

However, the best part of all was coming across the canals. It was like the traffic jams on the road was transferred to the canals. All we saw were hundreds and hundreds of boats on the canals cruising by with party goers having a fantastic time on them. Speakers blasting away dance and house music, party goers dancing on board, boozing, it was almost like a competition of who has the biggest, loudest speakers and the most party goers on board.

However the Queen's Day celebration was shortened in Amsterdam and probably toned down while in other cities like Rotterdam and Apeldoorn, celebrations were cancelled. This was out of respect for those whom have died in the attempted attack on the Queen's family in Apeldoorn where the Dutch Royals were making an appearance. A great day turned out to be a tragic one, with 4 dead and 13 injured.

Despite the dampening news, the finale was absolutely fantastic! The world's number 1 DJ, DJ Tiesto (he is Dutch by the way) gave an 1-hour special appearance at Museumplein (our last stop for the day). When he appeared on stage, the crowd went wild!!! He kept the crowd pumping and screaming all the time.

Queen's Day, 30th April

Queen's Day is the annual Dutch holiday in honour of their late Queen Jualiana's birthday. Every year, street parties are held all over the Ranstad (the four largest cities in the country).

The parties started the night before (The Night Before Queen's Day) and lasted thru the next day (The Queen's Day itself). All the streets were jammed packed with party goers dressed in the colour of orange! Beers flow freely and music blarring from cafes to cafes. The canals offer no sanctuary as well as thousand of boats will clog up the city's waterways.

Recently there's a controversy on one of the Queen's Day poster campaign where the faces of world leaders were photoshopped into these interesting posters - One of them depicted two men wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan of "Kiss Me I'm Drunk". The two men depicted in these posters were no other than the President of the United States and the Russian President! Looking at the poster, it is quite funny but definitely not to these 2 gentlemen and their 'camps'. Imagine impeccable image will be tarnished, people in their nation will be outraged etc. Hence, the campaign has been withdrawn and the posters have been stripped off the streets of Holland.

Controversy aside, I will be looking forward to join the 'World's Largest Street Parties' in 2 days time for an eye-opener experience. Stay tuned!