Pre-Koninginnedag 2007

Pre-Koninginnedag

This coming Monday is Koninginnedag (Queens Day) in Holland. As I mentioned last year Koninginnedag is the day that everyone in Holland celebrates the Dutch Queen’s birthday and it has nothing to do with men up and down the country putting on dresses and applying a little make-up to make them selves feel pretty.

The whole country joins in on the celebrations and Amsterdam becomes one big party. It is obviously a party with a very colour blind doorman since everyone wears orange (the national colour) on Koninginnedag. There are performances of live music on every city square, second hand sales out side every house and beer tents on every street corner. This means you can buy a beer at one tent, walk around a bit, finish drinking your beer and then find yourself almost magically at another beer tent, ready for a re-fill.

It’s the only time of year when it is socially acceptable to be drunk by 11am, hugging lamp posts by noon and passed out in the middle of Dam Square at 2pm as you’re friends shave your eyebrows off.

Since the drunkest person at any birthday party is usually the birthday boy or girl it raises the question; what how drunk does the Queen gets? Does she end up drunkenly telling each member of the royal court that she really means it when she says she loves them? Do the royal guard desperately try to keep her away from all the canals as she stumbles around? Does Prince Alexander have to act as the designated driver? Can the Queen be found at 4am in the morning at a Febo some where, eating a state kroket? Or is it just me that will end up this drunk?

If both myself and my liver survive Koninginnedag I will let you know what happens and hopefully have a few photos to share as well.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

11 Responses

  1. Indy says:

    That is in Amsterdam, right?

  2. Rob The Dutchman says:

    It’s the Febo where I want to eat that state kroket (lekker!) and not the Fabo.

  3. ChickyBabe says:

    “How drunk does the Queen get?” being from Down Under when I read this I thought of the Queen of England swinging from lamp posts! :P

    PS I just checked out your profile page. I love how you’ve presented the animation of your cartoon. Well done :).

  4. Tess says:

    When I lived in Amsterdam I tried to avoid the crowd, now that I’m living abroad I kinda miss it, isn’t that odd? So perhaps next year I’ll fly over… What happened to your spell-checker? Somehow the word koninginnedag is correct in the heading but not in the content? Did you have an early start this year??? :9 [Enjoy! can’t wait to see the pictures!]

  5. Ash says:

    Wow, that sounds like my kind of party!!!

    I bet the Queen drunk-dials…

    …or even more deadly, drunk-MSNs….

  6. Ash says:

    Oh yeah, I forgot. A CTI is paperwork you receive in this volunteer program thingy I’m doing. I got one for not e-mailing my House Manager report to the Powers That Be. It means I must “change my attitude…” Yup. No biggie.

  7. Invader Stu says:

    Hi everyone.

    This is just a quick message to let you know I have lost my internet connection at home so I will not be able to reply to comments individually for a little while. Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.

  8. Invader Stu says:

    I’ve still got no internet connection at home which sucks but luckily I can use the internet at the office :)

    Rob The Dutchman – Thanks for pointing out the typo

    ChickyBabe – I think the Dutch and British Queen should go out an crazy night out, Brittney and Paris Hilton style. Thanks for the complement.

    Tess – I wish I could blame it on an early start.

    Ash – That would be a strange phone call to get.

  9. Tess says:

    Sorry to hear about the internet issue, that sux! I won’t survive a day without… So, you’re saying you’re working at the mo after celebrating Queensday? How’s that possible? :9

    ps, I was surprised to see Koninginnedag spelt right anyway, Dutch people spell it wrong all the time, common mistake in NL [so good for you!]

  10. Invader Stu says:

    When you read about what happened to me on Queens Night you will know why.

  11. Dutchcookie says:

    just to make sure you have your facts really correct, it is actually the birthday of our former Queen, Koningin Juliana, the mother of our current queen Beatrix. In her honor they decided to keep koninginneday at 30 April and not move it to the birthday of Beatrix. But yeah, it’s a great party nevertheless ;-)

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