Week 13 - Cultural

HOLLAND!

As spring break began here in The Netherlands we were very happy at the thought of being off and class free for two weeks! This was even better as we didn’t have a break at Easter so we were having our well-deserved rest now. Furthermore, we very excited for Queens Day that was approaching as we had heard so much about this day where everything turns orange and everyone just has one big party celebrating the Queen’s birthday! Even more exciting in my eyes was the fact that we were experiencing the last Queen’s Day for a while here in the Netherlands as she was stepping down and letting her son become King.

As Queen’s Day approached all the Erasmus group had decided that we would go to Eindhoven and celebrate the day. Amsterdam would have been amazing but then we also knew

Some of the Orange Army in Eindhoven!

it would be way to busy and would probably end up getting all split up… so Eindhoven seemed the best place; somewhere different and somewhere we knew that would not disappoint. Using the quote of Abraham Lincoln “United we stand, Divided we fall” was good to describe our orange looking army as we wanted to have a brilliant day with everyone together and no one left behind! So we left Nijmegen early on Tuesday morning, dressed in orange and decorated with red, white and blue (colours close to my heart haha) and we got to Eindhoven eventually after a few songs being sang on the train. As soon as we got out of the train the place was packed with people and full of music stages and decorations everywhere… something I had yet to see in The Netherlands. The only thing I could compare it too would be like Saint Patrick’s Day or The 12^th of July only multiply this by about five as everyone you could think of was there; children, teenagers, youth, adults, parents, grandparents etc. and everywhere was packed and everyone was buzzing!

The street packed full of people!

As the day went on we got to listen to music all day and obviously had the occasional drink. The entire Erasmus group stayed together just about as some of us did end up getting split up – no wonder with the amount of people all looking the same all dressed in orange! None the less we all had a brilliant day celebrating Dutch culture proving to us that the Dutch really are proud of their culture and their monarch. We constantly hear now about how religion really isn’t big in The Netherlands any more as most people are atheist and about how people do not support the monarchy, however this was clearly proved wrong on Queen’s Day. This could however could be people just enjoying their day off instead of showing support of their Queen but this is a debatable matter that you can decide.

“Our culture now wonderfully, alchemically transforms images and history into artistic material.”

Saltz, J

We finished off the day as we started it back in Nijmegen, at Vossenveld, at the canal. We all sat together talking at the canal and some played some music on the guitar and we all had a few drinks. It really was the perfect way to finish off the day as we all really did have an awesome Queen’s Day… a day that I will never forget. As Bob Dylan said:

“Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.”

P.s. Top tip for this week no matter when you get split up from people and panic sets in that you are lost and what are you going to do? There is always somebody trying to ring or text or find you because they are worried about you. More or less… You are never alone.

References:

Dylan, B. Available: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/memories.html. Last Accessed: 06/05/13.

Lincoln, A. Available: http://www.searchquotes.com/search/United_We_Stand_Divide_We_Fall/. Last Accessed: 06/05/13.

Saltz, J. Available: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/culture_4.html. Last Accessed: 06/05/13.