Friday started off rough - long days all week at work, culminated with the ultimate Friday having 2 major deadlines on big projects and running at full steam for the last month left me drained. I had 2 friends staying over the weekend from London from work, but I honestly was convinced it would be a quiet night.
This year was the first official King's day after last year's abdication by the queen. The Hague is known for being the party place on King's night. King's day is quiet in the Hague - everyone goes to Utrecht, Haarlem, Rotterdam or of course, Amsterdam. King's night in the Hague is about 10 different stages set up all over town outdoors with music, dancing, beer, food, carnival, etc. It's impressive for a medium sized city.
We made dinner at the apartment, caught the tram to the centre and started stage hopping around 9pm. We started at the high school stage, with names like "XY chromosome" or something like that on accident. It was funny - it took us a while to figure out why we were definitely the oldest in the crowd.
From there it was to the dance stage where people who have clearly enjoyed chemical and/or organic substances danced it out. It was great people watching - we did that for about 10 minutes and then walked through the carnival (Lange Voorhuut) before ending at the indie rock stage (at least that's what I think it was). Caught the end of an acoustic guitar set that seemed promising, but was almost over. We then headed to the plein (square) to watch another dance stage.
After about 30 minutes of walking, we ended up at Grotemart - which is where it got good. The band we stumbled on to there was a mixture of Dutch, American and about 4 other nationalities. The lead singer was magnetic - he really knew how to get a crowd going. The real crowd pleaser though was a saxophone player who played every song like it was his last. Between the lead singer and the saxophone player, no one could stop dancing. Ok, maybe it was just me and 50-60 other people at the beginning, but at the end it felt like 500 people dancing like mad people. It took me back to the 90s when Ska was a thing and I went to that one concert by Five Iron Frenzy (I know, I was crazy in high school). I made up for all of those missed crazy Ska concerts in one night.
The next day, we made it to the train by 11, fully expecting to stand the whole way to Amsterdam in a packed train. By some weird fluke, we were the first ones on, got seats and ended up having a really enjoyable trip to Amsterdam listening to the stories from the previous night of everyone crammed into the train. I also learned what Scottish + ample amounts of Guinness smells like the next morning.
Amsterdam was a sea of orange - everywhere you looked was a new/creative way of wearing orange. There were bands and DJs on almost every canal bridge, but it wasn't so crowded that you couldn't get to the next bridge. We bought beer at any convenience store that was selling and watched the boat parade with sandwiches from Albert Heijn. Best picnic I've ever had because the people watching was incredible and the boats...oh the boats!
Part of the boat parade - one of the many with their own DJ on the boat
I can't tell if this is the boat, but I think this is the one with a saxophone player entertaining the crowd
Headed to the Dam
Some of the thousands of boats that you need a special permit to get on or ride in the canals during King's Day.
Sailor themed boat - so many fancy dress boats
Why grill onshore when you can offshore the operation?
Traffic jam on the canals for King's day
There were a bunch of different carnival like booths that people who lived in the area set up. Some of them were pretty traditional (knock bottles over, etc). Some though....this one above was a place where a guy put on a mask of some Dutch politician or Kim Kardashian or something like that and then had an egg thrown at him at close range for like a euro for 3 eggs. Number of problems with this - close range, too cheap, people were not yet drunk enough and hard throwing Dutch men. We saw this guy get pegged in the eye - definitely lucky he didn't lose it. Probably should rethink the business model for next year. And not let adults throw or move the line back.
One of the many boats that were absolutely packed with people.
As the day wore on, things got progressively crazier. One of the streets, this guy was leading dance moves from what I think was his apartment window and everyone in the vicinity stopped to follow them. So much fun.
Our fun little group got bigger as the day went on. What a great day!
No comments:
Post a Comment