Ahhh Koninginnedag (can you say it 5 times fast?). What a great holiday. I think this makes up for not having Halloween. Koninginnedag (Queen's Day in engels) is like Mardi Gras meets July 4 meets Miami Tailgate Party meets Night at the Roxbury meets a Flea Market. The entire country takes the day off to dress up in orange (for the House of Orange, which is their monarchy), get drunk, listen to techno and sell all their old shit on the street. Kid you not, this is the only day of the year that people are allowed to have sidewalk sales with all their crap. I praise the mastermind that approved the hocking of household junk during the day of highest alcohol consumption. I mean, what drunk person wouldn't want an accordion that's missing a few keys? Other weird traditions include performances by children for money: The park fills up with little Fiekes and Johans, playing their violins for change, apparently as a way to teach children about the value of earning a dollar (yeah, we missed that part of the tour this year...biiiig loss).
The coolest thing about this holiday is that it's not just done in Amsterdam -- the crowding of the streets happens EVERYWHERE in the country (the photo above is the main artery to where I live...that isn't even the centre of town). Since NL is the size of NJ, imagine this: The entire Turnpike packed with people in silly orange wigs and boas. This may also be the one day of the year that the pedestrian rules over bikes and trams (aka "silent killers). Though one of my friends did wear an orange helmet...y'know, just in case.
The coolest thing about this holiday is that it's not just done in Amsterdam -- the crowding of the streets happens EVERYWHERE in the country (the photo above is the main artery to where I live...that isn't even the centre of town). Since NL is the size of NJ, imagine this: The entire Turnpike packed with people in silly orange wigs and boas. This may also be the one day of the year that the pedestrian rules over bikes and trams (aka "silent killers). Though one of my friends did wear an orange helmet...y'know, just in case.
Lieutenant Leigh (in her 2nd annual Queen's day appearance...though the first was spent playing Geriatrics with me as I didn't have the ability to take off pants with zippers...my own, not other people's you perverts) and Capt'n Greg came up to help celebrate. We wandered around, drank, wandered around, drank, looked for a toilette, drank and generally had a lovely day (poor form on the story telling, I know, but it was a couple of weeks ago, so any cool anecdotes have been lost to the short-term memory gods).
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