Tiffany Goes Travelling

Today is Koninginnedag, or for all of you in English, Queen’s Day! Queen’s day is celebrated on the Queen Mother Juliana’s birthday, April 30th. Though the present Queen Beatrix’s birthday is on January 31st, she officially celebrates in on April 30th to preserve the tradition of this celebration. It’s a nation wide party – and when I say party, I mean PARTY!!!!! The events typically occur over two days, April 29th, Queen’s Night, and April 30th, Queen’s Day.

There are two things you need to know to have a successful Koninginnedag experience:

1) Wear Orange! Orange is the colour of the Dutch football team (yeah, I mean soccer), and it has become the go-to colour for expressing national pride. In the smaller towns the orange clothing participation may not be as strong, but in the larger cities like Den Haag, Utrecht, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, it’s out in full swing. Orange shirts, pants, wigs, tuxedo’s – you name it, it’s orange.

2) Party! That is the reason for the season. It will not be hard to find a party, basically every city in the Netherlands will be celebrating in some capacity. There are however a few well known hubs for the party-harders. I hear the place to be on Queen’s Night is Den Haag – numerous high quality concerts are held in that city versus most other cities. I have also heard that Utrecht rivals Den Haag for Queen’s Night greatness, but there is no denying who gets crowned winner of the Queen’s Day celebrations, and that is Amsterdam!

A group of friends and myself were among the million or so people who descended on Amsterdam city on April 30th. The craziest part of the party is the area closest to Amsterdam Centraal train station – however some dutch savvy students among us directed us to Amsterdam Zuid for our arrival station instead, which is on the complete opposite part of town from Centraal. If I pass along any advice to all you potential Queen’s Day-ers out there, it is this: arrive at Amsterdam Zuid! It was an excellent decision to do so. The party was in full swing at that end of town, and we had relatively no problem making our way to the centre. If you had come from Centraal to try to get to the centre, it likely would have taken you 3-4 times as long (I’m talking 1-3 hours) to get to the core of the party.

I parted ways with the group around the Rijksmuseum (they went off to a DJ dance square. As much fun as fist pumping to techno music is, I was not feelin’ it) and wandered around the insanely busy streets towards Centraal station, where I intended to eventually depart to get back home.  It was hard to find a street where the party was not happening! In the eye of the storm, so to speak, there was a beautiful convergence of people, canals and boats. I was awestruck; it really is quite a sight to see this party in action. I can’t describe it with words – the party is an energy that fills everyone and brings them together under one massive happy umbrella. I was beginning to feel proud to be Dutch, and I am not Dutch.

Dam Square was full of high thrill amusement park rides and lots of food vendors. I got some fries with mayo (yes, I have eaten fries with mayo. yes…I even enjoyed it) and an ice cream cone before attempting to get home at Amsterdam Centraal.

There was some difficulty getting home, because Amsterdam Centraal was at that point, and had been for 1 1/2 hours, completely shut down. I was told the reason was because people were walking on the tracks, so they stopped all the trains. Very inconvenient. I ended up taking the metro to Duivendrecht, then the train to Schiphol, then another train to Leiden. I didn’t even know this country had a metro, so I learned something today.

Overall, a very lovely experience. If you are ever in the area on April 30th, I highly suggest hitting up Amsterdam for a completely insane party.

Here are some highlights:

I got some love in a box from my baby back home. Would you believe that you cannot buy macaroni and cheese in the Netherlands? You can’t! You would have to buy macaroni noodles and pour melted cheese over it. Gross! I actually received three boxes, but I ate one as soon as I opened my package.  Pouring that neon orange “cheese” powder over the glorious noodles was therapeutic. The Dutch think they know cheese, but they don’t know KD.

I also got a few bars of my favourite fair trade chocolate from Superstore, some hair elastics from my mom (thanks mom!), a great moisturizer with SPF15  and some sweetie chocolates from my baby.

Thanks for sending this Tom. I love you

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On April 23rd, I should have been flying to Madrid with my boyfriend, who should have arrived in the Netherlands on April 19th. But because of some lame volcano in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COUNTRY, neither of those things happened. So instead, I went to Utrecht.

Two things of primary interest to me was the Dom Church, and Dom Tower. Originally one building, the Dom Church suffered extensive damage in 1674 during a storm, and now is separated by a courtyard from its tower, the Dom Tower. The Dom Tower is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. It is just over 112 meters tall and consists of 465 gruelling steps to the very top.  The stairs to the top get so narrow that it is impossible for people travelling alternate directions to pass each other in the stairway. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of the stairwell, on the other hand, I can sympathize that I was much more occupied with not collapsing and cogging up the whole thing as I laboured to the top. Is it a strenuous climb? Yes I would say so. Of course I am not very fit. Climbing the stairs is the only way to view this attraction; there are no elevators, no concessions or tools to assist tourists to the top. Make sure that you can make the climb before you pay the 8 euro for the pleasure.

Viewing the tower is only possible with a paid tour, which operates pretty much every hour, on the hour, depending on the season. There are 5 stops on the way to the top, the last one being optional and takes you to the very tippy top of the tower. The view is fantastic from the top of the tower, and pretty much worth the last 100 steps it takes to get there.

The Dom Church is a regular functioning church. It does have some beautiful architecture, and an very pleasant garden area to enjoy some lunch or read a book. It is free to go in, though they ask for a 2 euro donation. Guided tours of the church are available by request at the entrance.

After the Dom Church and Tower tours, I strolled along the Oudegracht trying to find a seat on the packed patio’s of all the trendy cafe’s lining the canal. The Oudegracht is a unique canal experience, one of the few places in the Netherlands where the buildings have basements, and the basements have patio’s along the canal.

A Cola Light and a sandwich later, I headed home. Below are some highlights of my trip, but I’ve posted some more pictures here.

** On a side, you may have noticed that the pictures being uploaded to my photobucket account are smaller than pictures I’ve uploaded previously. This is because my photobucket space is being used up, so I am loading smaller sized pictures to maximize the usage of my remaining space, because I do not want to pay to upgrade the space on my account.