Queen’s
Day –
If you only visit
Everyone wears orange - the color of the royal house,
and it is impossible to be in a bad mood dressed as a Satsuma. Trading laws are
lifted for the day so anyone can sell whatever they want on the street, the
whole place becomes the most outrageous flea-market. Music pumps out of sound
systems and stages spring up through the city playing jazz, classical music and
the latest dance tunes. The canals heave with party boats whizzing around with orange
balloons blowing off them in the wind.
Here
are 4 galleries of photos and an 11 minute video from our day and night
enjoying Queen’s Day:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Queen’s Day 2008 video |
|
|||
|
Duration 11 minutes |
Windows Media |
Real Player |
Microsoft Silverlight |
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||||
It takes less than
2½ hours to get from my apartment in
This year (2008)
Queens Day was on a Wednesday. We arrived on the Tuesday morning, meeting up
with our DJ friend Doug Gray
for lunch. Festivities began in evening with some Drag Queen Olympics at the
Homomonument. Later in the evening we headed off to Orange Ball which
was surprisingly quite. It seemed people where holding back for the big day
tomorrow.
We woke to the
loud sounds of music at about 10am, after breakfast we headed outside to find a
whole new Amsterdam that we knew yesterday. The streets were packed with people
wearing orange, they were literally crammed with crazy people drinking and
dancing in the rays of the morning sunshine. It’s a day to let your hair down
and dress up in your silliest outfit, the more orange the better. We spent all
day wondering around all the different parts of the city people watching,
bumping into friends and familiar faces. In the evening there were two major
big parties to consider: Roxy
Colosseum or a Rapido Party called
Wearhouse, and had planned get some photos from both events. We started off in Roxy Colosseum and ended up
staying all night. It was a very good party with DJ’s Gonzalo
and Micky
Friedmann; along with loads of sexy boys in little orange speedos.
We stayed at the Jolly Carlton Hotel (Vijzelstraat 4 –
1017 HK Amsterdam) next to the flower market, which is right by the gay Reguliersdwaarstraat area of the city. Or you could try
booking via www.hotels.nl
Make a note in your diary for
Here
are some good web links for Gay Amsterdam: