Happy Queens Day!!

So, this post is a little late as Queen's Day was last Saturday...what are you gonna do?

WOW...what can I say about Queen's Day in Amsterdam? It was crazy. The biggest party day of the year here in Holland. Bigger that NYE apparently. It was complete chaos...and we liked it.

So...here's some history from the web:

Queen's day, or Koninginnedag, is a national holiday in the Netherlands. On this day we celebrate the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. Although it's originally the birthday of Queen Juliana (the mother of Queen Beatrix...the current Queen), not of Queen Beatrix, we celebrate her birthday on 30 April. Our Queen Beatrix birthday is really on the 31th January, but the winter isn't the time to party outside! Because of this Queen Beatrix officially celebrates her birthday on 30 April, so we can party with (hopefully) better weather! Isn't our Queen lovely?

Queen's Day is also a typical occasion for the world-famous Orange Craze. On this day most of the people wear orange clothing and creative orange accessories. The colour orange is a ubiquitous sight, referring to the name of our royal family, the House of Orange. Everywhere in the city you'll see orange banners, orange coloered foods and drinks. So don't forget your orange t-shirt when you join us in the Orange Craze!!!

..And HO BOY. I was out of place without an orange shirt. Lucky for her, Jessica is Syracuse ("The Orange") alumni so she had a shirt already. We both picked up some cheap orange sunglasses as you will see, so I fit in a bit. I needed some orange shoes and I would have been good to go.

We met a few fellow Ex-Pats from the States a week or so ago and ended up at a house party hosted by one of them. It was fun! We basically hung out the window and watched crazy orange people walk by on the street and cruise by on the canal. This girl had plastic red Solo cups shipped in from the States specifically for "flip cup"...an interesting college drinking game that I somehow missed during my years at University. I must have been too busy studying....yeah that's it! Of course, after setting aside my germ issues....I was pretty darn good at it.

What we witnessed all day out the window was tremendously packed boats with tremendously drunk people dancing and partying. Every time I looked out the window it looked like a maritime disaster waiting to happen. Many of them looked like they were on the verge of sinking. It was amazing!! I have some video, but it's not uploading very well...so...sorry!