Except a lot crazier than Canada Day.
There are a few traditions on Koninginnedag. One of them is a festival of children's games and activities in every neighbourhood. This was ours:
Merel and Job, right in the middle of things:
Job, riding the bucking bronco...
And Thom, preparing for some jousting...
This girl never had a chance; heck, I wouldn't go up against Thom in that.
And Thom, of course, managed to wiggle his way up to the front of the crowd to get picked as the magician's assistant.
I went off exploring. Another tradition is the "free market"; on Koninginnedag, anyone can sell whatever they want to on the streets, so there are stalls set up everywhere. It's as if I was back in the Grand Bazaar again...
In the very center of town was an outdoor dance party, packed in with beer-swilling orange-clad hooligans. I never realized this many young people even lived in Bussum!
I took a couple short videos that might give a sense of the atmosphere. This was three in the afternoon on a Wednesday!
At this point I reflected to myself: this is Bussum, a sleepy bedroom community. If this is what Bussum looks like...what's going on in Amsterdam?
Holy smokes. Amsterdam was nuts.
All the streets in the downtown core were shut down and filled with people. There were stalls everywhere; people were selling six packs of Heineken for 2 euros.
Below you can see a street that leads into Dam Sqaure. There were all kinds of crazy carnival rides set up, but I never got there because it would have taken forever to get through everybody.
Every time you walked around a corner there was some kind of outdoor concert or dance party.
Another little video; this sort of music was everywhere.
The party just went on and on, for as long as the eye could see. This much orange gives you a sense of what it was like during the Euros (football tournament) as well.
Crazy Dutch...
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