Amsterdam: Kings Day Festival - Part 1

Amsterdam, Day One, Girls Weekend, Musings, Netherlands, Travel, Trip

Amsterdam: Day One

Every year, my best friends from college and I try to do a trip of some kind. A girls weekend of fun and catching up since we all live in different areas now (NYC, DC and England). We've been everywhere from Munich for Oktoberfest, Atlantis in the Bahamas, to stateside affairs such as Providence, Rhode Island for seafood and cliff walks and Philadelphia for cheesesteaks and speak easy hopping. This year, we decided to hit up Amsterdam for Kings Day festivities.

We all came in yesterday at different times, me being the last one to get here. Jet lagged but pumped on reunion vibes and the happy, enthralling festivities happening right outside our window kept me moving into the wee hours of the next morning. I wish the video I took would work on this post but it's failing me now... however, if you saw it on my Bookstagram stories, you would see that it depicts the crowds of fun with mash-up music and confetti EVERYWHERE. Taken straight from our living room window, we ended up in the heart of orange love. Here's a still shot to give you an idea:

I don't know about you guys, but we love getting dressed up, wigged out and all in all really owning the party atmosphere as much as possible. As we were told orange is the color of the Dutch and what we should try to wear, I walked into my reunion, welcomed by my girls and their orange wigs. They didn't even realize they had gotten the same wig so I was odd (wo)man out without one of my own. So putting on an orange fedora (not pictured) and throwing some gems on my face, we took a quick snap and headed out to see what everything was all about.

We started at a pizza restaurant with a liter of wine, some water and our individual eats. Bellies full of food and laughter, we ended up stuck there for over two hours just catching up on all things life. From there we dropped leftovers off and hit the streets. We started a local coffee shop where not only coffee is sold 😉 Talked to some of the locals (which means one old man from Ireland who was on a two week holiday), imbibed on sparkling water and lattes and then we decided it was time to dance! Just follow the music!

The first "club" we went to was tiny and full of drunktards - mostly happy - who immediately wanted to dance with everyone. Being accosted immediately, we decided to travel further in and away from all the hands. That didn't work out too well and after many chest pushes to get away from these extremely handsy idiots, we traveled to another spot. Less handsy but still very "friendly", we managed to have fun - dancing to 90s music that went all over the place and changed at the drop of a dime. Also, the only place I had to pay to pee. (What is THAT about!) After about an hour or so there, we ended up at a local bar where we drank some more (when in Amsterdam....) and continued our laughing spree until jetlag won the battle and we decided we still had 2 full days so why not get some proper rest.

Waking up starving and needing some coffee to get our juices flowing again, we were impressed at how clean the streets were considering how disgusting they became last night. The most impressive garbage pile I saw was right outside the Burger King - BK bags EVERYWHERE. But then this morning, voila!:

Today we are off to a particular type of museum and some local, beautiful scenery. Stay tuned for Day 2's summation tomorrow. I know, you just can't wait, can you?

💕 from Amsterdam,

Chandra