King's Day Trip 2025 Part 3 - King's Day

Today was the day! We were so excited to don all our orange Dutch gear and join the crowds at the King's Day celebrations in Amsterdam. 

It was mayhem! The canals were packed and the streets were full too. People were selling alcohol out of bags and coolers, and there were little parties grouped around where someone was playing music. My cousin and his girlfriend were there, so they helped us negotiate drink prices in Dutch! Finding a bathroom wasn't much of a problem for guys, because there were public urinals placed throughout, but ladies had to stand in very long lines at restaurants or stores. Thankfully my niece had friends in the city, so we had access to their nearby apartment when we needed a bathroom break. Without that luxury, I think it would have been quite a different experience for us! The friends loaded up a speaker and we made our way into a public area to drink, dance, and laugh! 

 

Your girl found an orange traffic cone and used it as a megaphone, which was a big hit for the passersby. Many a person offered money to buy it from us. Haha.

What a fun experience, to revel with the hundreds of thousands of people in the city, all coming together for celebration, without a care in the world. We ended the night back at our niece's friend's apartment, just sharing stories and laughing. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

King's Day Trip 2025 Part 2 - Amsterdam Tourism

My sister and I met up with my niece and her boyfriend in Amsterdam so we could check out the sites the day before the King's Day parties. We started at the MOCO Museum, where Banksy, Andy Warhol, and Keith Haring pieces were on exhibit. It was awesome! It's not a huge museum, but I enjoyed going through each exhibit room. 

Next up was the Straat Museum, which is a warehouse full of amazing street art. The scale was incredible. I'm so glad my sister suggested this place, because it was absolutely worth it. If you're in Amsterdam, go check it out! 

We strolled around the city looking for more photo ops and grabbed something to eat at Blushing. 

The most exciting part of our day was when we went to the A'Dam Lookout. It's an observation deck with great views of the city, but also lets you swing out over the city from high above...if you're brave enough! Two out of the four people in our group were hesitant, but we all did it! 

King's Day Trip 2025 Part 1 - Gouda

My niece mentioned she would be traveling to Amsterdam for King's Day this year, so my sister and I decided to check out flights and see if we could make it work too. As luck would have it, we found some flights and the timing fit into our work schedules, so we started making plans! King's Day is a national holiday in the Netherlands that celebrates the King's birthday, and parties/festivals are held throughout the country. The biggest one happens in Amsterdam and there are usually more than 500,000 visitors coming into the city that day. Sounded like a fun party! I'm always going to jump at the chance to spend more time in the Netherlands, and considering it was also tulip season, it was an easy decision. 

We stayed at Hotel Zoku, which is a funky apartment-style hotel in the middle of the city. The rooms were eclectic, but had little kitchen setups and were fine for just the two of us. 

We walked around the city for a while after checking in, and made a stop at Stroopperie to get a sweet treat.

The next day we made our way to the city of Gouda to check out the cheese market. What was going on in the main square was mainly ceremonial, but you could go into stores and see the vast display of cheese varieties. We did some taste testing and wished we could have brought back all the different varieties of Gouda home! We also saw a vending machine for Stroopwafels, which made sense because Gouda is the birthplace of this famous Dutch dessert.

On the way back to Amsterdam, we stopped in Utrecht to do some shopping and visit with our cousin's girlfriend who worked at a store there. Back at the hotel, we went up to the convenient bar/restaurant on the top floor, with a beautiful, lush walkway leading to it. We sat at a booth that had a funny message next to it.

We laughed at that and wondered how often it happened. Well, sure enough, within a few minutes, the alarm went off and their staff jumped into action. We moved out of the way so they could reach their walkie talkies and safety vests. Apparently someone had left something on the stove and it caused the smoke alarm to go off. Glad to see the staff had a plan to handle that, and there was no fire, so we were able to get back to our dinner quickly!