Monday, April 30, 2007: Happy Queen's Day!!
So obviously, today's the much anticipated Queen's Day and they really weren't kidding when they said it was crazy...so to start from the beginning, let me tell you how my day started.
Shannon had to go pick up Lily (another IT auditor) from the airport in the morning since Lily was going to be working on the Netherland locations this week. Not like I really minded, but I was informed that I'd be going with her to the airport. I really hate being told what to do and would
have gladly said yes if I was asked, but whatever...no need to start things off on a bad foot. So since today was gonna be madness, I knew that they would be closing off certain streets around Amsterdam as well as not running the trains or letting cabs go through the city. We stopped at the concierge desk to check on the road blockage and this guy said it would be no problem getting to the airport. HOWEVER, he failed to mention that we wouldn't be able to get back to the hotel!! Can you see where this is going? It only took us about 15 min. to get to the airport, no traffic cause everyone and their mom was in the city! We pick up Lily (who, by the way, was the only person I had met previously at my job interview and is tons of fun!) and head back to the city. We're literally 2 BLOCKS from our hotel and we see road blocks in front of us. Uh oh...so we pull up to the politie (police officer) and ask him if he'll let us through since we're staying at the Marriott 1 block away (we could even see it!). But no - he wouldn't let us through and said for us to drive around the other way. Well, brilliant guy - all of the area around the Marriott was completely blocked off so we came to find out that there WAS NO other way. So let me also say that Shannon is not an aggressive driver...and anyone who's ever driven with me knows that I am ;-). With the mass crowds of people walking and biking all over the place, she couldn't go anywhere! Poor Shannon - she had to deal with the stress of trying not to run over 
people plus she had to listen to me and Lily be backseat drivers and tell her where to go (try this street, try that street)...eventually we had no clue where we were and no street map! One of the other guys had mine and she didn't have one in her car. So I couldn't take it anymore and asked Shannon if it would help for me to try driving. She immediately put the car in park in the middle of the street and got outta the car, obviously frustrated. I jumped in front and started moving through the crowd. Within 10 minutes, we got through the ridiculous mass of people and found our way to familiar area...the Rijksmuseum, which is a few blocks from our hotel. We found an open spot of sidewalk (yes, sidewalk) and I busted a U in the street and popped our baby Benz SUV onto it. Since it was Queen's Day, people were parking anywhere and everywhere since parking was free and there would be no towing until Tuesday. And that's that...i wasn't gonna mess with it anymore and we'd been on the road for 2 hours by this time. We lugged Lily's suitcases to the hotel and got her checked in and then met up with the rest of the crew at the Museumplein. 
There was a huge concert going on over there so we wanted to check it out. Pretty ridiculou
s... it was like woodstock or some huge music festival that was put on by a local radio station and had over 35 DJ's, bands, singers, etc performing throughout the day. So we hung out there for a while and chilled with the rest of the team and then they had to head back to Zwolle for the coming week. Not sure why the left so early (it was only around 1pm), but they probably didn't want to get stuck in traffic I guess.
So after hanging out at the Museumplein for a while we wanted to see what else was going on. We'd already seen the "flea market" side during the 2-hr drive to find a parking spot. Basically Queen's Day is the 1 day a year where anyone can sell anything on the street without a license. It's basically a garage sale on every street, on every corner, in front of every store. Even all the restaurants had little buffet lines set up in front of their stores to catch passers-by. Mom woulda had a field day...thank goodness she wasn't there ;-). Just kidding mom - you know I love you!
So obviously, today's the much anticipated Queen's Day and they really weren't kidding when they said it was crazy...so to start from the beginning, let me tell you how my day started.
Shannon had to go pick up Lily (another IT auditor) from the airport in the morning since Lily was going to be working on the Netherland locations this week. Not like I really minded, but I was informed that I'd be going with her to the airport. I really hate being told what to do and would
have gladly said yes if I was asked, but whatever...no need to start things off on a bad foot. So since today was gonna be madness, I knew that they would be closing off certain streets around Amsterdam as well as not running the trains or letting cabs go through the city. We stopped at the concierge desk to check on the road blockage and this guy said it would be no problem getting to the airport. HOWEVER, he failed to mention that we wouldn't be able to get back to the hotel!! Can you see where this is going? It only took us about 15 min. to get to the airport, no traffic cause everyone and their mom was in the city! We pick up Lily (who, by the way, was the only person I had met previously at my job interview and is tons of fun!) and head back to the city. We're literally 2 BLOCKS from our hotel and we see road blocks in front of us. Uh oh...so we pull up to the politie (police officer) and ask him if he'll let us through since we're staying at the Marriott 1 block away (we could even see it!). But no - he wouldn't let us through and said for us to drive around the other way. Well, brilliant guy - all of the area around the Marriott was completely blocked off so we came to find out that there WAS NO other way. So let me also say that Shannon is not an aggressive driver...and anyone who's ever driven with me knows that I am ;-). With the mass crowds of people walking and biking all over the place, she couldn't go anywhere! Poor Shannon - she had to deal with the stress of trying not to run over 
people plus she had to listen to me and Lily be backseat drivers and tell her where to go (try this street, try that street)...eventually we had no clue where we were and no street map! One of the other guys had mine and she didn't have one in her car. So I couldn't take it anymore and asked Shannon if it would help for me to try driving. She immediately put the car in park in the middle of the street and got outta the car, obviously frustrated. I jumped in front and started moving through the crowd. Within 10 minutes, we got through the ridiculous mass of people and found our way to familiar area...the Rijksmuseum, which is a few blocks from our hotel. We found an open spot of sidewalk (yes, sidewalk) and I busted a U in the street and popped our baby Benz SUV onto it. Since it was Queen's Day, people were parking anywhere and everywhere since parking was free and there would be no towing until Tuesday. And that's that...i wasn't gonna mess with it anymore and we'd been on the road for 2 hours by this time. We lugged Lily's suitcases to the hotel and got her checked in and then met up with the rest of the crew at the Museumplein. There was a huge concert going on over there so we wanted to check it out. Pretty ridiculou
s... it was like woodstock or some huge music festival that was put on by a local radio station and had over 35 DJ's, bands, singers, etc performing throughout the day. So we hung out there for a while and chilled with the rest of the team and then they had to head back to Zwolle for the coming week. Not sure why the left so early (it was only around 1pm), but they probably didn't want to get stuck in traffic I guess.So after hanging out at the Museumplein for a while we wanted to see what else was going on. We'd already seen the "flea market" side during the 2-hr drive to find a parking spot. Basically Queen's Day is the 1 day a year where anyone can sell anything on the street without a license. It's basically a garage sale on every street, on every corner, in front of every store. Even all the restaurants had little buffet lines set up in front of their stores to catch passers-by. Mom woulda had a field day...thank goodness she wasn't there ;-). Just kidding mom - you know I love you!
So we walked along the crowded streets and did A LOT of people watching!! Drunk people, crazy people, old people, young people, people with their babies in strollers (which I did not approve of) and just lots of general debauchery!! It was the most insane thing I've ever seen!! As the day went on, it just got more and more crowded. There were DJ's blasting music on every corner and people were dancing in the middle of streets and in all the squares. They were serving beer and other drinks outside so people were just having a great time. They compare it to Carnival in Brazil. It's not like it's just one specific area where this happens. It's all over Holland and especially in Amsterdam - the entire city shuts down for this. People are everywhere!!! I think they estimate that there are up to 2 million people outside in Amsterdam on this particular day. Can you imagine that?? 
So around 4 or 5pm, we were getting hungry and decided to head back to the hotel to get Shannon. She had gone back for a nap and it was just Rafael, Lily and I left to explore. To get from the Leidseplein (normally a 2 min walk) to our hotel, it took us 30 minutes! The only reason we could move at all was because we were being pushed from behind...basically being herded like cattle. I tend to get a little claustrophobic thanks to my years at an over-crowded high school with no windows, so I really needed to get outta there. Once we got back to the hotel, we agreed not to go back out into the madness.
The hotel restaurant was packed, but we weren't willing to venture anywhere else, so we called Shannon and she came downstairs to meet us. After an early dinner we all went back to our rooms and passed out! It was really an exhausting day. I woke up around 10pm and the party was still going on! I could hear it from my hotel room and I was almost tempted to go back out but wasn't gonna go by myself, so I thought better and just stayed in. The festivities lasted until around midnight or so...
and that was my first (possibly only) Queen's Day. What an experience! We really lucked out with the timing of this audit, the weather and our location. I'm so glad I was able to make it out here for all this!! I made it through my first weekend overseas!! We'll see how next weekend goes - we're off to Prague on Friday! I love short work-weeks :-).
The hotel restaurant was packed, but we weren't willing to venture anywhere else, so we called Shannon and she came downstairs to meet us. After an early dinner we all went back to our rooms and passed out! It was really an exhausting day. I woke up around 10pm and the party was still going on! I could hear it from my hotel room and I was almost tempted to go back out but wasn't gonna go by myself, so I thought better and just stayed in. The festivities lasted until around midnight or so...
and that was my first (possibly only) Queen's Day. What an experience! We really lucked out with the timing of this audit, the weather and our location. I'm so glad I was able to make it out here for all this!! I made it through my first weekend overseas!! We'll see how next weekend goes - we're off to Prague on Friday! I love short work-weeks :-).
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