Every year Dutch people celebrate the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. This day (April 30) is commonly referred to as "Queen's Day" or "Koninginnedag". Basically, Amsterdam (and a few other cities) shuts down and people take a day off to enjoy themselves. Typical celebrations involve outdoor music, lots of dancing and public drunkedness.
A few of interesting points to mention. First, April 30th is not actually the birthday of Queen Beatrix but that of her mother, Queen Juliana; Queen Beatrix's birthday is on January 31st. However, for practical purposes (i.e., weather) they decided to keep it on April 30th. Oddly enough, from what I was told the weather usually isn't that nice and for us to have a gorgeous day like we did was a very special indeed... or there maybe something to this global warming thing.
Second, Koninginnedag is also the day where everyone sells their junk. It's like the whole country decided to have a yard sale on the same day. Coolsingel, one of the main streets here in Rotterdam, was closed off for people to set up shop and put their crap on display. Everything from old clothes to appliances was being hawked to anybody with a penchant for second-hand deals.
Third and most fun, everybody dresses up and puts on some orange (called "oranjegekte") as a part of the celebration. This is reference to the name of the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange. It's quite entertaining to watch the sea of orange throughout the day and into the night. And as you can see from the pictures, my Dutch football jersey did the job quite nicely.
Hup Holland hup!
Teeks
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