Amsterdam Day 1: Koninginnedag

Our friends Louie and Sonia, who live in NJ came to visit in Zurich for a few days, then Brian and I and the two of them headed to Amsterdam. We arrived on the night train from Zurich to Utrecht, a city about a half hour by train outside of Amsterdam the morning of Koninginnedag, or Queen's Day. Because Amsterdam is such complete chaos on Queen's Day, the main train station in Amsterdam only has local trains running, no international trains, so we had to switch to a super overcrowded train in Utrecht, overflowing with orange-clad partyers. Why orange? Well, the simple answer is because the Dutch royal family is called the House of Orange. But, then why is that? Well, it's because they had feudal ties to a midieval provence in the south of France called Orange (there's still a town by that name near Arles) where there were once vast Orange groves, but no longer. Anyway, the current Queen is Queen Beatrix, whose birthday is actually in January. In her infinite wisdom, she realized that January is a crappy month for Queen's Day, and left it on April 30, her mom's birthday, in her honor. Very wise, I'd say.

We decided to drop our stuff off at the hotel before heading out into the fray. To get there, we took a little ferry, which conveniently was free and ran every five minutes, practically around the clock. A very cute row of Dutch bars and restaurants on the way to our hotel:

Then it was time to join the crowd...

Because the Dutch were early traders in the far east and islands (e.g. The Dutch East Indies Company) they have awesome international food. For lunch, we met up with our friends Douwe (who is Dutch) and Tonja (his wife, who lived in Amsterdam for about 8 years). They took us to a very tasty Ethiopean restaurant. Certainly not something we could get in Zurich!

Then we wandered the city a bit. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on, including party boats in the canals, beer sellers on every corner, and live music everywhere. One of the key features of Queen's Day is that anyone can sell anything in the street on that day only without any special permission. In the main park, the Vondelpark, children sell their old toys, clothes, cookies, and whatever else strikes them.

Next, we found a great cafe with a terrasse looking out over a canal and settled in for a few drinks.

Here's some time lapse photography in case you are interested...