kingsday and kingsnight

I wanted to make a post about King’s Day and King’s Night, so here we go.

First, as you can see, we made a little reel during King’s Day. I got in contact with Anouk from Doedonnie through Sterre from The Special Social Club.

I’m from Amsterdam, and King’s Day here is always incredibly busy—the entire city basically turns into one big festival. As you can imagine, moving around in such a crowded area can be a challenge for everyone, and even more so if you have a disability.

However, we wanted to make a video to show that this doesn’t have to stop you. If you want to do something, you should just go ahead and do it. If there’s a will, there’s almost always a way.

So I got in touch with Anouk, and we decided to go out during King’s Day. She made a post on her socials and gathered a group. We all had various disabilities and decided to head into the city center together.

I met up with Anouk near my house around 12:30 in the afternoon. We walked to Haarlemmerplein through Westerpark, talking and getting to know each other a bit. We met up with the rest of the group there and went into the center from there.

We first went to De Blaffende Vis, but it was extremely crowded. We tried going through it, but people were already quite drunk and got a bit panicky when they saw us in the crowd.

It’s one thing when you’re alone, but people get really strange when they see a group of people with disabilities in a crowded space. They panic more than you ever would. It’s almost like they suddenly encountered a lion in the middle of the city.

In this case, people started pushing each other to try to make space for us, even though we didn’t really ask for it. It was all well-intentioned, but others didn’t always understand what was going on, so it became a bit chaotic. We decided to leave.

However, I can be a bit of an activist when it comes to things like this. I convinced the group to try again—this time just claiming our space, regardless of what other people expected us to do or be capable of.

We found another crowded street with good music and went in. One person there panicked again and tried to convince us not to go in, but we just ignored him.

In the end, everything turned out well. If you want to enter a crowded space—whether it’s a festival or anywhere else—you should just go for it. Stay calm, move slowly, and find a good spot to stand. Then just be there. Don’t panic, don’t push, and don’t let others push you away either. People will naturally get used to you being there.

People can be a bit like skittish cats when they encounter someone with a disability—you just need to give them a moment to adjust 😊

We later joined another group that was enjoying the music and decided to go with them when they moved to a different spot. I honestly don’t remember exactly where the second place was—just somewhere in the city center.

After a while, I decided to go my own way. Some group members had already left, and I wanted to go somewhere else. By that point, it was around 18:00.

I went to a student association I’m a member of—they always open their building to everyone during King’s Day. I stayed there for about two hours, then joined another group at a small house party in the city center. There were about six of us, and we stayed until around midnight.

After that, five of us decided to go out again. We first went to Rembrandtplein, but the group wanted to go to Leidseplein, so we headed there.

I wouldn’t really recommend Leidseplein at night during King’s Day. It was crowded, of course, but the atmosphere wasn’t great—people seemed to be looking for trouble with the police, and it was a bit of a mess. We left pretty quickly and found a random club instead. I stayed until about 2 a.m. before heading home.

The day before was King’s Night. That evening, I first went to De Pijp for a coffee. I joined two different groups—first a group of tourists visiting a friend from the Netherlands. After they left, two girls and a group of guys joined the table. I stayed with them for a bit, then decided to head to Leidseplein.

I ran into a friend from university at the first bar I passed, right next to the tram stop. I decided to stay there since it was a nice place—I think the bar is called Lux.

I mostly stayed with my friend, but not the entire time. They were quite drunk (and more than that), so it wasn’t really possible to keep track of them all the time. My night ended up being a mix of hanging out with that group and joining others for a dance or a conversation. I went home around 3 a.m.

All in all, it was a very busy couple of days. The day before that, I had also gone out in Leiden, so it was actually a very busy three days.

I kind of ignored the fact that I had a cold the entire time. Unfortunately, my body didn’t forget, so I paid the price on Tuesday. Thankfully I don’t drink or do anything like that, but I was still very tired—so I took it easy for a few days afterward.

And that was my weekend 😊

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