For such a small country, the Dutch have a rich selection of stereotypes and symbols draw from when creating nationalistic costumes. Cows, clogs, tulips, triangular bonnets and of course mass-manufactured orange bric-a-brac: there was no shortage of choices to express Dutch pride. I had picked up a t-shirt at the squat advertising Snoopy’s Holland Party for the occasion. Still, the day before Queen’s Day, I didn’t feel quite orange enough and went on a search for some obnoxious orange accessories.
Instead, I walked into a used clothing store and found a vintage KLM stewardess uniform calling my name. The outfit plus the scarf, cost 8,50€. Despite the fact the fabric is salmon, the frills make it comically Dutch. Lining the pockets and collar is ribbon sporting the colours of the Dutch flag and the orange tulle (added by the previous owner) isn’t too subtle. It was a steal of a find and I can’t believe it stayed on the racks for that long. Now I could walk the streets of Amsterdam with confidence.
Granted, when we got to Amsterdam around noon there wasn’t much walking to be done. The train stations were issuing special OranjeRetour tickets, that allowed free access to the metro, buses and trams in addition to the train journey. You get what you pay for (the ticket was its usual price ) as every street I walked down was shut down and flooded with pedestrians and there were no buses or trams in sight. But that was Queen’s Day in essence, one big city-wide street party.
There really wasn’t anything especially interesting for me other than the universal party atmosphere. There were stages set up at various points in the city with performers blaring dance music. Party boats were putting about in the canals blaring their own dance music. The most iconic imagery were the normally pristine streets covered in litter and overflowing public urinals. And then there were the special Queen’s Day menus where shopkeepers blatantly charged twice their normal prices. I sound really unimpressed but the truth is I was a little bit. Carnival was mind-blowing for me and I was expecting something ten-folds for a national holiday in the capital. Maybe you can only feel that wow-effect for this kind of thing once or maybe it’s true that they do party harder south of the Rhine.
