Queens Day/Birthday/Sunday with Alice

So, this last week has definitely been a crazy one.
April 24-26: CIEE took most of us (Americans studying in Amsterdam) to Schiermonnikoog- the smallest Island in the Netherlands which is mainly a natural reserve. They took us mudflat walking at 5 am (we all got very dirty), tours of the island, and we got to stay in a farm-turned-hostel next to a field of baby lambs. It was a weekend of summer camp-milk drinking, game playing, etc. We all soaked up a bit of sun at the beach (though I couldn't force myself to jump into the north sea) because the weather was absolutely gorgeous with highs of nearly 70 and not a cloud in the sky. It reminded me a lot of the San Juan Islands, but much flatter (in common dutch fashion).
April 28: Back in Amsterdam only one night, I hopped on the next train to Leiden to visit my dutch friend, Christian, who I met during the summer at Occidental and who I randomly ran into in Dublin a few weekends before. He picked me up at the train station and toured me around Leiden on the back of his bike. For dinner, his housing associated (Kind of like a fraternity) made us pancakes and then he took me out to see the Tuesday night crowd of Leiden- not too lively, to say the least.
April 29: I woke up the next morning (my birthday) and walked to the house of the Grandmother of my friend Caroline. She is Dutch, and came with me on the train to Leiden because her grandmother also lives there. The walk over was surprising- almost every garden had a lilac bush in full bloom. Lilacs are my birthday flower (the flowers my dad brought my mom when I was born) so I picked one and put it in my hair. Once at Caroline's, we took her g-ma's dogs out for a walk through the forest across the street. Her house was so relaxing- tea, sandwiches, comfy couches. During our lunch, she received a phone call, she picked up the phone, but didn't hold it up to her ear... She said she gets phone calls from a restricted number at least 5 times a day and she thinks they come from the boys who live next door, BUT she's been receiving them for the last 5 years!!!! She notes the exact time of each call so that she can contact the phone company so she can find out who it really is. I told her I'd write a story about it because I thought it was funny, but I think she (and Caroline) were pretty scared and creeped out by the whole situation-oops. We took the train home and began to prepare for Koningsnacht (kings night)- the biggest party in the world.
On a side note, we had dinner at the most refreshingly authentic Mexican restaurant called the Taco shop. It's in the Southern part of the city and run by an American guy. They have surprisingly spicy salsa (upon demand) and some pretty delicious chili verde...
After burritos, we headed over to our friend's apartment on the Prinsengracht where one of the many street parties was also happening. Hundreds of people were out in the street dancing to techno blasting from the dj's tent. We all squeezed through the crowd (holding hands so we wouldn't lose each other) and into my friend's apartment. Just then, I got a phone call from my friend Alice (from Oxy who is studying in Berlin) saying that the car she was traveling in would be at central station in no time. I grabbed Caroline and we rushed to the station to find her. Central Station was definitely a funny place to be- everyone coming to Amsterdam for Queensday (the next day when over 1,000,000 people come to Amsterdam doubling the population). I got called a hippie chic because I was wearing an orange headband (only acceptable for queens week) and then I saw ALICE! I was so happy to see her and so happy to have a visitor. We biked through the throngs of people making their way to the parties back to my apartment and had a pretty easy night. I had a great birthday, but it was definitely swallowed up by the nation-wide queens day celebration.
April 30, 2009- QUEENSDAY. Millions of people adorned in too much orange, rows and rows of yard sale (it's the only day that Amsterdammers can legally sell things on the street), delicious food, sitting back on the prinsengracht with an ice cold biertje. We (Alice, Caroline, Justin, Sara, and I) got a relatively late start (10 am) to our day, but made our way quickly to the prinsengracht where out friends were bbq-ing and from where we could see all the party boats cruising along the canals. We sat there for most of the day until we made the long trek to museumplein where some famous dj's were spinning (but where we couldn't see or hear them and ended up swimming in a mountain of broken glass and sweaty/drunken orange crowd. from there we walked across the ENTIRE city, back to my apartment where I made some delicious dinner with Alice and my neighbor Sean.
May 1- Recovery. Alice and I woke up sore and extremely tired from all of our walking the day before. We walked with Caroline through the Nieuwemarkt and to the Friday Boekenmarkt at Spui (the book market) where I bought Greene's the quiet American. We spent the entire afternoon in the public Library doing work (I have three giant papers looming). Quiet dinner at home+ surprise apple turnovers and cinnamon ice cream (late birthday celebration) with Sara and Justin+ leftover Heineken and cards.
May 2: TULIPS. I promised Alice I would take her to see the tulips when she was here. So we devised a plan to bike about 50 km to find some tulips for free. Unfortunately, we got incredibly lost and ended up spending the afternoon in the vondelpark and the Van Gogh museum. Later we made unintentionally extremely spice stir-fry with sara, justin, and alex and went on a tour of the red-light district (still the most depressing place I have been).
May 3: TULIPS (for real). Alice and I devised another foolproof plan to see the tulips. We biked to the Amsterdam Sloterdijk station (20 min) to find out that it would cost 6 euros each way to take our bikes on the train to Haarlem. We opted out of taking our bikes and decided that we would take the bus from Haarlem to the Keukenhof (an extremely touristy way to see the tulips). After about an hour of travel we arrived to the keukenhof, the fields behind it (normally full of tulips) were completely empty. There wasn't a tulip in sight. We walked to the entrance anyway and debated whether to pay the 13 euro entrance. We even asked a troupe of elderly Germans if it was worth it- YES YES YES they said. We paid our entrance fee and entered into a botanical Disneyland. There were tulips EVERYWHERE- every color, size, shape of tulip EVER. We even say tulips with fuzzy looking edges, deep purple tulips, giant white tulips. It was totally worth every euro cent and pushing through the touristy crowds. Alice had to be back in Amsterdam by 5 to catch her ride back so we left around 2:45. This is the best part- we ran to catch the bus and we made it, we ran to catch the train and we made it, be biked home in a fury with enough time for Alice to run to the store to buy a few extra tubs of spekuloos (gingerbready cookies turned into a nutella like spread- can you say DELICIOUS?) Now Alice is gone, but we have a great week full of memories. One of my greatest weeks.