As hundreds of thousands of people turned up in the major Dutch cities to celebrate the Queensday, international students did not stay behind. While the majority of them enjoyed the loud and drunken parties, others even took advantage of the free market concept. EM has the scoop.
German people are known to study hard, but they sure know how to party hard too. For Johanna Schüttpelz it was the second Queensday experience and the nice weather made it quite a pleasant one. However, she had not expected so many people to turn up and missed out on the Slam FM party on the Java island, because they were too crowded. “The municipality should increase the number of events – and install more toilets too!”
Unwelcome Change
Johanna’s suggestion probably will not be taken into consideration soon as the Amsterdam’s mayor Eberhard van der Laan made sure that the museumplein would be deserted this year. According to Amsterdam Herald, van der Laan moved the large events out of the city centre due to complaining residents. Eko Rahmadian, an urban finance student, thinks that this move will decrease the enthusiasm and the number of tourists.
Best Day
Having had a crazy party night and day himself, he says it is wonderful to see millions of people having fun together all wearing orange. “It’s the best moment for Holland to be the most wanted country to visit on 30th of April and it should stay that way”.
Free market and not-so-free water
Shona Anderson, a Scottish student, seized the opportunity to set up a stall and sell her paintings on Queensday and was not disappointed. “It’s a tough crowd to sell anything above 10 euros to, but it was a great experience”. However, the party can be pricey; 13 euros to get into the Q-day festival which not so long ago used to be free, for some seems unreasonable. “Despite it being 20+ degrees and thousands of people confined in a space, they still charged 5 euros for water – more than for beer! The government should be putting more control on companies like that”. MD
