Day 36: Queen's Day

Another day, another country, another time zone. Flying into the country, I knew it was Queen's Day in the Netherlands, but I didn't really know what it entailed. I figured it was something like Victoria day - you know, have a barbecue, watch some fireworks, that sort of thing. When I got here and tried to find a way to get to my hostel and learned that that all the streets were shut down, I quickily realized I underestimated the Dutch ability to bring the crazy.

Because I was too lazy to try to figure out the optimal way to get to my hostel I just started walking in the general direction with confidence I'd find my way there instinctually. Surprisingly, this time it actually kind of worked. Even getting there fairly directly it was a bit of a trek since I had to carry all my stuff something like 4km, and the streets were crowded enough to slow things down quite a bit, but eventually I found my way there, dropped my things off and went exploring. Since it was a nice day and there was so much going on outside I decided to leave the museums and other indoor places for later, and just enjoy the day out.

Although there was certainly a lot of energy in the city, there was also a lot of mess. I'm not sure if the nice weather brought out more people that expected or what, but the streets were covered with garbage and cans were overflowing from bins everywhere. The "entrepreneurial spirit" of the few shops that were open had them charging to use the washrooms, so people were urinating on busy streets and into the canals everywhere. I'm still debating if I want to go out again or not. It seemed like most of the city was drunk by 5:00 and I was just trying not to get beer spilt on me in the crowded stretches. I'm going to do a bit of research and see what's going on tonight and see if there's anything worth checking out, but without knowing anybody in the city to hang out with it makes it a bit harder. I'll probably stick to some more touristy things tomorrow, and I still need to reserve some tickets for my eurail pass, so I should get that figured out as well.