koninginnedag 2012, Queensday 2012

Tomorrow it is 30th april and it is what we call koninginnedag. A national holiday where there are many events in our country. A common festivity is a oranjemarkt (literally orange market), fleamarket, junksale. In almost every city and town is one.

One of the cities which is most popular is off course Amsterdam! There is a giant market and there usually are many musical events. There have been years it was so crowded in Amsterdam that it was forbidden to go in. Nobody was admitted to enter the city and for whom that went there know Amsterdam is a large city, so just imagine....

Also in Eindhoven, the place I like the most, there are many festivities. Tomorrow I will show some pictures of my favourite holiday!

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!

Going out in Eindhoven: Stratums Eind

Stratums Eind is the street in Eindhoven where it all goes down, when it comes to going out in Eindhoven. It is a street filled with bars, cafés and disco's. This street is actualle close to the centre of Eindhoven it is just a 5 minute walk from the market to Stratums eind, so really easy to find. From the Central trainstation to stratums eind it is a 15 minute walk straight through the centre of Eindhoven.

 Stratum in daylight.

Stratums Eind as said is a narrow street filled with bars. It is a great place to have an afternoon cup of tea or coffee but this is also where every weekend the party is started. A huge number of people in all ages come here to have a blast on saturday. There are all kinds of cafés, karaokebar, disco, gaybar, german cafe, studentbars. In short there is something for everyone. During events there are always events organised in this street, queensday (30th april) is such a day and when you are around, check it out!

 during event: Carnaval

The times Stratum is the place to be:

thursday (studentnight): 22.00 - 02.00

friday:                             22.00 - 04.00

saturday:                         22.00 - 04.00

A few of my favourite cafés;
Cafe Santé & Café De Stunt; cafe/bar with popular music where there usually is a relaxed atmosphere
Santiago de Cuba; where upstairs is a room to salsa, and everybody dances

But as said there are numerous bars, so feel free and check it out when you are in the neighbourhood!

Going out in Eindhoven, Santiago de Cuba

Finally after a long time we all went out together again. We arived at a friends house in Eindhoven at about 00.00 and had some drinks. After we finished the drinks, we all went to Eindhoven.

When we first arrived, there was not much going on but after a while, the streets were packed.
Ever since smoking inside has been forbidden the streets are just crowded with people.

To the right you see an older picture of the barstreet when it is crowded, forget to take pictures of it saturdaynight.

Well after checking out some pubs and clubs, we finally discovered Santiago de Cuba. Heaven.

Upstair was a salsa room and well it was not really crowded but comfortable full of people, if you catch my drift? In there was a dj turning records. As you may well know summer has not been here, it has been raining for months now and we really miss that summery feeling. Well saturdaynight, the summerfeeling was back! These songs just made it summer instantly. Everybody was salsadancing and having the time of their life.

Some guy took me in his arms and twirled me around the room.. Until I got too dizzy and I took a break, LOL. We had a couple of drinks, met up with some friends and had a great night. At the bar we saw some friends and got a ride home.

This is Bar Santiago de Cuba when empty...

When we were in the car driving home, I was almost sleeping, it was 5.00 am so not really strange. Then all of a sudden there was a strange noise. We asked what it was. The driver said, I think it was a cars headrest. We all smiled, yeah right, I have never droven into a headrest before. A few seconds, another noise. What was that? A headrest? The driver said carefully. We stopped and checked it out.

And indeed, not one but two headrest were laying on the road, just survived the ride they had beneath our car. I will tell you, I have had some items crashing into my car and driven over some stuff but a headrest from inside a car? Never let alone, two of them!

This was a spectacular ending of a very good evening, at 6.30 I hit my bed and guess I slept at 6.35.

thanks to: www.santiagodecuba.nl