Advertisement
Back to The Netherlands for another weekend break, and this time it was to celebrate Kingsday! I had been two years ago when it was Queensday and had an absolute ball. It is a national holiday in Holland to celebrate the birthday of the Queen, and the tradition is still being kept now that they have a new King. So myself and my friend Sarah, from back home in Glasgow, headed over for three nights. We got there couple days before the main event on the Thursday the 24th April. Headed first to drop our stuff at the hotel. It was right in the centre, practically across the road from Central Station which was great. We were bit confused when we got there as couldn't see the entrance. Turns out this is because we had to go via the pizza/kebab shop below, brilliant - drunken munch sorted for later then! Was a good wee gem that we found - really central, free breaky and had our own little private room. So dumped the bags and headed out. Went first to a bar next to The Grasshopper and sat outside with bottle of wine. Loving it here already. We went after here
to a little Mexica Place for dinner which was lovely. Afterwards we went a walk through the Red Light District. Just so surreal seeing all the girls at the windows, most were just standing having a fag and chatting away to the girl in the next window. Then there was an array of sex shops and 'live porno shows.' Not going to lie that I really wanted to go and see one out of curiosity, but we decided to wait and see what money we had at the end of the holiday; but we never did go. Another time. Got ourselves a bottle of rum and back to room to get ready for a night out. We just headed out hotel and walked in direction of where we thought bars and clubs would be. We came across a cool wee bar and got chatting to some Dutch guys who were going to a club called Studio 80, which is where we had wanted to head to anyways. So we went with them round to the club. We loved it and were in our element all night dancing away. And one of the guys, Felix, become our best friend of the
evening and had an after party with him. Stayed up for our free breakfast at hotel at 8am then called it a night shortly afterwards. Definitely gave it a good going on the first night, as to be expected. The Friday was our chill day. We got up about lunchtime, walked round to a little cafe round the corner by the canal and sat outside. We were in desperate need of a Bloody Mary, but they didn't do them here so we just opted for a coffee. Then continued our search for our Bloody Mary. Ended up at a lovely cafe near Dam Square where we sat outside again, up high steps - great for people watching. Got our drinks and lunch. Had a little traditional Dutch lunch of soup, bread with eggs and cheese, and another piece of bread with a croquette. Yum. Had a walk around the city. I had wanted to go to the Anne Frank museum, which we found but the queues were massive outside and we were feeling bit fragile so just left it. Sat outside another bar for a while. We could see stages being set up outside for Kingsday celebrations. So excited! We
headed back to hotel quite early and just chilled to save ourselves for the main event tomorrow. We ended up sleeping for 14hours! Must have needed it! And here we go again - Happy Kingsday. Up early (ish) and got our free breakfast again. Streets were so buys already, with tunes pumping from all directions and orange decorations everywhere, and people wearing orange attire. It's what's traditionally worn for this day. We had tickets for an Open Air Festival for during the day. Had to get the train to Sloterdijk station. Was great day - we were just at a little field dancing away, had some desperados ( beer with tequilla, love it) and there was a guy on a saxophone. Good fun. We left it an hour or so early to head back into the city to check out the street parties. Was absolutely wild. Literally people dancing on the streets and street corners everywhere. Guys had just set up dj stands randomly where they could and there was such a random array of music from hip hop, britney, techno.... Just so great how they really go for it. We found a cool little jazz bar for a drink
and danced to some swing. There were bbqs on the streets too so that did for some dinner. Later on we got on the subway to go to what we had heard was the best club in Amsterdam - Trouw. However it was so busy, we waited for an hour to get in but they had a 'one person out, one person in' procedure going on so we eventually gave up and went back to our haunt from the first night, Studio 80. We realised going back how little we actually remembered from the first night which was really funny. We had another brilliant night. No sign of our friend Felix though, however we did meet a guy who was dressed in a cape and was a hoot. We really do meet them! Managed to drag ourselves out of bed and check out an hour late the next day. They were cool about it, love the Dutch as just so chilled. Got a big Sunday lunch then said our goodbyes and off to the airport home. Such an amazing weekend from the music, food, people, weather....! Would recommend it to anyone who loves a good time!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.148s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0712s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb