Stratum,eindhoven, koninginnedag, queensday.

April just started and in april we have a national holiday called koninginnedag (queensday). This day we celebrate the birthday of the mother of our current queen Beatrix. The queen visits a town and does some games and waves to the public, talks to the mayor. There are fleamarkets all over the country and festivities are held everywhere.

In Eindhoven there are a lot of festivities, flea market, games and off course eindhoven is a great town to go out at night. Koninginnenacht (queensnight) is the evening and there are music events everywhere, all people go out that night and have a blast. Eindhoven, especially stratum is a great place to have your koninginnenacht!

Carnaval 2012 Eindhoven - Lampegat

It has been 17.00 and officially carnaval has started. Today thousand of people leave their regular clothes at home and go on having a party in the strangest outfits. The next xouple of days I will try to give some updates and share some pictures.

We all go out tomorrow and I cannot wait!

I forgot to mention all villages in the south now have cool carnaval names (nicknames). Eindhoven (hometown of Philips) is called Lampegat (lampvillage). This just shows how many people love this party and are also anxious to get the party started!

Saturday the parade will take place in Eindhoven/Lampegat a real cool parade you should not miss (if you are around that is!)
Sunday in the centre youth carnaval will take place and there is a band contest.

And off course my favourite salsa cafe has its own caribean program:






These are just two activities but all over Brabant and limburg will be lots of stuff to do!

Be there!

Vacation, whaaa

I am really longing for a vacation and I actually cannot wait. Still I have not found anything that really got me excited, which means look further for me! Tomorrow Carnaval begins in the south of Holland and everybody is excited. However we are all excited tomorrow, by monday the friendly, festive atmosphere usually turns into drunk, agressive behaviour. So I will definately go out but not after sunday.

Sunday there is a parade and the youth will get on carts and drive through town. The parade starts at 13.11 and that is the time they will start drinking too, you can imagine, sunday is usually not the busiest of days in the pubs since most are hammered at 16.00.

A few years back an accident occured and a young boy fell of the cart and died. Since then it is forbidden to use any alcohol during the parade. However forbidden the participants are very clever and have several ways to still use alcohol. It is said some of them even got a producer of lemonade to put beer in lemonade cans....

Please people, carnaval is sucha great party, keep it a party and behave!

Pre-Carnaval party

The party was great! I used yesterday to regain some energy because we went all the way!

With some of Hollands' best artists it was a great party. My outfit was an original and I was happy with it.

Just a little impression, might add some more pics later on. For now: Enjoy your sunday!