On April 27th, the whole of the Netherlands grinds to a halt and turns bright orange to celebrate their King’s birthday.

Since moving to The Netherlands, I have been so excited to join in with the celebrations of Kingsday and fully submerge myself in the experience. I had someone say to me recently: “You’re Scottish, why are you looking forward to King’s Day? Scottish people don’t like the British royal family and Kingsday is a day to celebrate our King!”.

What this person forgot was… I am SCOTTISH! Scottish people are extremely patriotic, love a day off work, love a good party and love to DRINK. Kingsday is all of those things and so much more, so why wouldn’t I want to celebrate it?

The first rule of Kingsday is to wear something orange… or oranje as the Dutch say. The more orange, the better! Don’t be surprised if you see people rocking bright oranges suits and funky orange wigs.

Every Dutch town and city is celebrating Kingsday and have a range of activities for families, young and older people.  Amsterdam is the daddy of Kingsday celebrations, tens of thousands of people flock to Amsterdam from all over the world to join in the festivities.

We invited friends to our apartment for pre-drinks and snacks and to get into party mode. With Kingsday being on a Monday and people having to work the next day, we stayed local in Eindhoven. Being 24 and still having a good few party years left in me, our plans were to follow the music and end up at the stage with the best line up. But it was a hard choice picking where to go, there is too much to choose from!

We were extremely lucky with the weather, the forecast kept changing leading up to Kingsday and rain was forecasted. Luckily the sun was shining and that made the wine go down that little bit easier. Walking around Eindhoven, I was in awe… The myths of Kingsday were true. It is wall-to-wall full of people, random parties everywhere in the streets and everyone is enjoying a drink.

That leads me to the second Kingsday rule… drink! You will find that every pub is open and all offering deals on alcoholic drinks (like we needed tempted), stores even have little bars outside selling beer (even noodle bars join in on the action).

Okay you have twisted my arm…In the name of research pass me a beer!

After walking through the streets of Eindhoven, we added up spending most of our day at an abandoned building site where Electric Orange was held. It was rammed full with people dancing the day away.

Oh and drinking the day away…Proost (cheers).

We had the pleasure of seeing the likes of; FeestDJRuud, Sander van Doorn and Nicky Romero, just to name a few. The DJ’s really added to the amazing atmosphere, keeping the crowd up-beat and dancing along. This helped after the sun had set, and the day of dancing and drinking started taking its toll.

We ventured down to Stratumseind (a street full of pubs), for a little change of scenery. I have been down this street so many times,  but I have never seen it this busy and orange!  Party atmosphere was still in full swing.

10:30pm came around, it was time to put our sensible hats on and start thinking about going home. People had to work in the morning and working with little sleep or a hangover is not fun. We danced our way up to the train station, were we said goodbye to friends.

With most of the celebrations starting to wind down and people starting to go home, the aftermath was slowly revealing itself.  I feel sorry for the clean up crew…

In conclusion, this Scottish girl had a blast and got to see Eindhoven in a new way. This was by far the best way to spend a Monday and I am looking forward to next year’s edition! Hands down, the Dutch know how to throw a birthday party. Happy Birthday King Willem-Alexander, stay cool and keep partying!

P.S: Always remember to drink responsibly guys.  

P.P.S: If any Dutchie want to throw me a party like this, my birthday is in October 😀

N x