Your World May Be Tinted Orange After Reading This Post

Amsterdam on Queen's Day did not disappoint, my friends.   What a celebration!  We decided to head up to Amsterdam by train on Monday afternoon so that we wouldn't have to deal with trying to get into the city on Queen's Day itself, which was celebrated on Tuesday.  I'm glad we did because it allowed us to hang out with a bunch of other expats that night to celebrate Queen's Night.  Our friend Amanda graciously allowed us to crash at her place, which was so much better than getting a hotel.  That evening we went to a street lined with bars and tons of people in the streets.  We stayed pretty relaxed though by just sitting outside at a cafe and hanging out.

The next morning, we headed to one of the canals to get on our boat for the day.  I wasn't sure what to expect, since we knew we were going to be on a boat with 35 people.  Todd says the boat was larger than he was expecting, I said smaller. Here's what she actually looked like:

Before.

After, with a few people still missing.

At around 10 am, we pushed off and headed into the main, historic canals of Amsterdam.  We were surprised to find that we were one of the first boats in the water.  This turned out to be a great thing since we got to travel through a ton of the canals before the real madness began at around noon.

We were well prepared on our boat with snacks and drinks to last until 3pm, when our joy ride would come to an end.

But enough chatting, I think the best way to show you Amsterdam on Queen's Day will be through the photos we took!  Get ready for an orange explosion. It is pretty much a prerequisite to wear orange in order to being allowed on the streets of Amsterdam on Queen's Day.  Everyone on our boat had certainly taken this to heart.

Here we are before embarking:

Our host, Amanda.

And now for the flood of orange:

Mindy and I, with guest photo-bomber, Brad.

The orange jello shots were not easy to consume, but I could wash my sticky hands in the canal.

I was safe, I promise.

Fellow boaters.

My patented, "I'm having fun" face.

At a pit stop, the city had port-o-potties on the docks.

Here we are entering the busiest canal in the city.  It was wall to wall craziness!

There were people lined up along this entire canal.

Having a nice time.

Howdy, padna!

After hitting dry land again, we headed onto the streets to take in more of the festivities.

Those are "W"s for Willem-Alexander.

And here's a group shot of the other EY NL expats who started at the same time we did:

What a day!  We had a total blast out on the canals, I'm so glad we got to experience Queen's Day on the water.  As crazy as it was, I think people were rather well-behaved throughout the city.  Drinking is allowed on the canals and in the streets, but everyone seemed to just be having a good time, and it wasn't all that rowdy.  

Probably the best story of the day occurred at one of the pit stops on the dock.  A bunch of boats were tied up together as people climbed onto the dock to wait their turn in line at the toilet.  It wasn't exactly a terribly long line, but one of the girls in an adjacent boat decided she couldn't wait.  Instead, she just crouched right over the side of her boat and went for it. Who cares if there are hundreds of people watching you?  Now, her day would have gone better if the story ended there.  But it didn't, because she must not have had a good grip and she fell right into the water.  Her friends pulled her out right away, but her pants were still down, and I'm sure some people got quite the view.  This same girl then proceeded to climb onto the dock, and nature called again.  She still couldn't manage to wait in line, and instead jumped into a nearby dumpster that was filled with trash to do her business.  I really wonder if those white pants of hers will ever be clean again.

Luckily, no one from our boat fell in the water, making the trip a huge success.  Next year, the Netherlands will celebrate King's Day in honor of the new King, Willem-Alexander.  We didn't manage to catch a glimpse of any of the royals, but it was pretty cool to be in the city during this momentous time in Dutch history.  What a great experience!