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.