Koninginnedag

Every April 30th, the Dutch celebrate the national holiday Koninginnedag (Queen's Day). It was established by Queen Juliana in 1948 on her birthday. Her daughter, Queen Beatrix, chose to retain the date as her birthday is 31st January, when the weather is much colder. (Note from the future: King Wilhem-Alexander, who ascended the throne when his mother abdicated in 2013, has chosen 27th April for Koningsdag from 2014 onwards. It is unclear whether the vrijmakt, street sales of second-hand goods, will continue. It's fairly safe to assume that the orange theme, representing the House of Orange, will.)

I dodged the "dog eggs" on the sidewalk, caught tram 16 to Weteringcircuit and walked to Keizersgracht. Orange was everywhere; orange sashes, headbands, scarves, T-shirts, jackets, flowers. Vondelpark had been turned into an amusement park and a kid magnet. A few seedy characters whispered hashish at passers-by. I took a ride on a ferris wheel which afforded a good birds eye view of the park and surrounds. The weather was gorgeous and it was a lovely day to be alive.

Here's the Rijksmuseum and crowds outside. I had an ice cream at Museumplein and investigated the street markets. They were awash with old utensils, whitegoods and electronics, including many amplifiers from what I later described to my friend G as the "one big front knob era".

Many good jazz bands were playing at the cafe/bars. One establishment had put up a sign reading Geen WC (no toilet), and two arrows: <- bier, WC -> (pointing towards the canal).

There were also street entrepreneurs challenging people to games of skill such as trying to ride a bike with trick handlebars. A poor beggar woman at Bloemstraat wasn't one of the people celebrating, she belonged to the less visible underside of Europe. I ended up outside the home of S, my supervisor when I was an intern in Amsterdam. His nephews were guarding the goods, which included an ancient 300 baud modem and lots of reel-to-reel tapes. My friend G was there and ended buying a mosquito net from S. Somebody bought S's couch for 50 guilders. It's my theory that Koninginnedag is an excuse for the Dutch to exchange junk and enjoy the novelty of new possessions for a while without buying new goods.

We had a refreshing white beer for the warm afternoon. A thunderstorm blew up so we had to take in S's furniture quickly.

I ended the evening dining at S's place. We had homemade pasta with wine, finished off with toetjes (desserts) and roasted nuts. Outside the glow of the street lamps reflected on the wet pavement reminded me of Magritte's The Empire of Light.

Back at G's apartment where I was spending my last night in Amsterdam, I had a shower and repacked my bags. Time to exchange vocabularies and dredge up all the Spanish personal pronouns and irregular verbs I had been learning for the last couple of years.

Transit day

We landed at Bangkok at 0610 local time and were allowed to stretch our legs. The airport smelt of deodorant and humidity, common in Asian buildings. On the next leg I tried to "sleep in" to adjust. Eventually I had to resort to the entertainment system. The in-flight film (definite article, as this was in the days before personal screens) was Enchanted April, of the people from gloomy England find happiness in a warm Mediterranean clime genre.

We had made up all but 10 minutes of the delay on arrival at Schiphol. I checked into my tiny but spotless room. I took myself for a walk to stretch my body clock. It was a warm day. People were enjoying the balmy weather in Vondelpark, around the corner from the hotel. A didgeridoo busker was playing, but he faked the modulation by waving a mute across the mouth rather than controlling his breath. There was a kermis in full swing at Damrak and another at Museumplein. Traffic was snarled, as usual; anybody who drives in Amsterdam is a fool.

I had a look in the Virgin Megastore but CDs were expensive. Anyway I didn't want to load myself down with purchases at the beginning of a holiday. The Netherlands had created a 5 guilder coin since my last visit, for inflation or vending machines, or both.

I tried to stay up as late as possible to adjust. I had a conference tutorial to attend next day, and inevitably I would wake up in the small hours of the morning and not get enough sleep. And because it was a Sunday there would be less trams running.

At this point I will skip several days in the blog, past the conference, because I don't have any photos for those days, and I would bore you with just a wall of text.

Off to the Netherlands and Spain

I had fish and chips in the neighbourhood plaza and fed the leftovers to the mynahs before catching the bus to the city. There was a fair amount of Friday evening traffic so it took 50 minutes. A pity to leave while the city was so lively. At the airport it was quiet.

As expected there were many Dutch passengers. Those with Amsterdam duty free bags were returning (the first outgoing leg was also the last incoming leg). My neighbour was a retired naval inspector from Canberra visiting his cousins and old schoolmates. He had 3 children; a son worked for a Canadian software firm and was a globetrotter. He had traced his family history back to the 1400s. On my left was a Hungarian granny visiting her daughter and 20 something granddaughter in Melbourne. She only spoke Hungarian, Russian and German only the last of which I could understand. She was excited and kept asking whether we were there already. The woman behind had plump cheeks and short brown hair. She was eager to get off; took her hand luggage out before the plane halted. She wore a neck scarf like the Dutch but also had an Australian accent.

The departure from Melbourne was delayed an hour; and we were the last plane for the night. Some prankster had reprogrammed the electronic signboard to read Have a shit trip from FAC. I read Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning up to the point where he departs England for Spain. I wasn't intending to use this as a travel guide. Laurie set out in 1934 and the clouds of civil war were gathering then. The flight had a copy of the daily El Pais, good for language practice.

The crew changed in Melbourne. The granny was replaced by a young man who read all the safety instructions and watched the demo on the TV. First time to Europe perhaps? We headed into the night skies for Bangkok and made up for the lost time.