alking of civilization: awhile back I cautioned you to mistrust anyone's sweeping generalities about Amsterdammers. Keep that in mind while I throw you a few of my own. To me, the people here do seem at least outwardly forebearing with each other. They aren't pussies, and they do get frustrated, but compared to some societies I've seen the Amsterdammers are pretty good at handling conflict without nastiness. Maybe they're not really having a better day than the average New Yorker. It just feels that way. Civilization here is mainly voluntary, not enforced. The iron fist thing never went over too well here. Amsterdammers are more likely to be pragmatic than dogmatic, and in their heart of hearts they seem to know that we do have to live together.
So how is it that the Amsterdammers are able to maintain such a high level of civility most of the time?
Because sometimes they totally lose their shit and go fucking nutty.
That's my theory anyway. The acrobat can't spend all his time walking the high wire. He must occasionally flop onto the sofa, knowing this is as far as he can fall.
Several Dutch holidays — and other annual events that feel like holidays — turn Amsterdam into a street party. Here are some to look out for.
Queen's day (Koninginnedag) now happens on 30 April every year. Traditionally this was the queen's birthday, but the current queen Beatrix was born 31 January,
not a great time of year for dancing in the street. So on 30 April everybody gets the day off, and the whole city turns into an open-air market. Everybody can stake out a bit of sidewalk and sell their thing in the street, be it jewelry, junk, a dance step or a magic trick. Kids get involved too, especially in Vondelpark. There's beer on sale at outdoor stands, and the Dam, Amstel and Leidseplein are set up as dance party zones with DJs and loud music. Like most street festivities, it's more fun when it's not pouring rain. But even if it is raining, the people are determined to dress up in orange, get tipsy and act goofy.
A few days later comes the anti-streetparty, Remembrance day (Dodenherdenking or remembrance of the dead) on the fourth of May. Thousands of people flock to the Dam for a somber ceremony commemorating the tragedy of the Second World War. They make little speeches, an orchestra plays, the queen lays a wreath, a clock tolls eight bells, and then there are two minutes of pure silence. It's spooky to be surrounded by thousands of totally silent people. You can hear the wind. Then the orchestra strikes up and they sing the Wilhelmus (their national anthem).
Next day it's back to partying. 5 May is Liberation day (Bevrijdingsdag), not a day-off holiday, but still marked with street festivities and a concert on the Amstel River.
During early summer, Amsterdam can spontaneously turn street-festive anytime the Nederland team are doing well in the EK or European Cup. It doesn't take too much to set them off. Just not losing to Germany makes a lot of people happy, even if the match ends in a tie.
At the first weekend of every August Amsterdam Pride, organized by Gay Business Amsterdam, brings at least 250,000 people to the street, and includes a fancy boat-parade on the canals. On 13 and 14 August they celebrate Hartjesdag (little hearts' day), the Amsterdam cross-dressing festival including a parade on the Zeedijk.
The last weekend of August is called Uitmarkt or "outmarket". This is the official opening of Amsterdam's "cultural season" and brings hundreds of performing arts acts — theater, cabaret, comedy, chamber music, hiphop, dance — to stages around Museumplein and Leidseplein.
Around the third week of November the Cannabis Cup comes to town. It's organized by High Times magazine and brings a lot of visitors to Amsterdam "to celebrate the spiritual, medical and industrial uses of cannabis." Mainly it's a four-day competiton to judge the best overall coffeeshop, best hash, best seed company, etc — so don't be surprised if you meet a lot of baked wanderers at that time. A couple years back the festival founder, Steven Hager, got busted for having six times the legal limit in his hotel room. After Hager spent a cold night in jail, a high police official (Hager doesn't say how high) decided he should be released. "It's not allowed to have this much cannabis in your possession," the official told him. "But I can see you are a nice guy."
Also in November, with much fanfare, a guy pretending to be Sinterclaas (St Nicolaas) shows up, supposedly on a boat from Spain. Nicolaas is important to Amsterdam because he's the patron saint of sailors. He carries a big staff curved like a question mark, and comes with one or more black guys called "black pete". They stick around till early December making frequent appearances in television ads. If you're a good kid and leave your shoes by the fireplace, he and Pete will slip down your chimney to bring you gifts on 5 December, the eve of his feast day. If you're a bad kid they'll kidnap you, stick you in the sack and bring you to Ibiza. Sorry, I mean Spain.
For a supposedly non-confessional society, the Dutch get some pretty far-flung Christian holidays off from work. Oddly enough they do not get Remembrance Day or Liberation Day off. But they do get first and second Christmas day (eerste en tweede Kerstdag), Easter monday (tweede Paasdag). Ascension thursday (known as Hemelvaartsdag or "heaven-ride day", sounds like fun!). Then there's something called tweede Pinksterdag which is the second day of Whitsun or Pentecost. Don't feel too stupid if you can't remember what Pentecost is. A fair percentage of the people who get Christmas day off here do not know what Christmas is.
Finally there's the mother of all crazy streetfests: New Year's Eve (Oudejaarsavond or old year's evening). Here is my list of tips for how to safely enjoy New Year's Eve in Amsterdam.
[1] Hide.
Sorry, there's no item 2 on that list.
This is the one night when Amsterdammers really lose their shit. Only this time they're armed with explosives — about 40 million euros worth. And if you're saying "hey, I like fireworks at New Year's!" — well, tell me that next time somebody shoots a rocket past your head. Where I was born, somebody was actually 
in charge of fireworks displays, most of which happened in the sky. Here it's much more democratic, and happens mainly at street level.
The first fireworks were brought here in the 1600s, by Dutch merchant ships returning from trade voyages to the far east. But the tradition of private citizens blowing themselves up is fairly new. A century ago Amsterdammers marked New Year's with a few cannons out over the water at Prins Hendrikkade. The mass do-it-yourself thing is a postwar phenomenon, and it's unknown anywhere else in Europe. You start hearing the odd firecracker starting in November. By early December you're getting treated to the occasional random cherry bomb or M80 type of thing. By Christmastime the use of private fireworks in residential hoods is pretty relentless. Some folks who weren't born here have trouble sleeping then, and are constantly on edge — like my friend who's a refugee from one of the Balkan wars. Then on the last night of the year, all hell breaks loose.
You follow the crowd into the big square at Nieuwmarkt. The streets are already slick with red paper from spent bombs. People are hanging whole mats of firecrackers from the lampposts and setting them off. All around you people are firing rockets into the air, and sometimes at one another. Your feeling of attending a reenactment of the Battle of the Bulge is amplified when you get hopelessly separated from your friends. The risk of blindness, hearing loss or mutilation makes it just that much more of a thrill. Midnight comes and goes. Trying to flee the battlefield you dart through narrow streets in the old Joodse wijk. You get stopped a few times by people who want to shake your hand and wish you a gelukkig nieuwjaar! Then you run into two crews of merrymakers firing rockets at each other from opposite sides of an avenue. A temporary ceasefire is called long enough for you to sneak by. Finally you get home, lock the door behind you and do a quick count of fingers and toes.
These days only about 1200 people are injured by fireworks each year in the Netherlands. The number used to be much higher. Fireworks laws are growing stricter, but the incendiary nature of Oudejaarsavond isn't going away anytime soon. In a 2001 Volkskrant article, C Meijer of the Consumers and Safety association says "We are opposed to a prohibition. It is part of our national character to secretly do things regardless of any prohibitions."
The Amsterdammers take New Year's day off to recover from that mad catharsis — and then another year of civilization begins.
