Happy Woningsdag - the Koningsdag for 2020
Happy Koningsdag!
If you’re Dutch or live in the Netherlands, when you wake up on April 27th, no doubt your King's Day celebrations will be very different from usual.
Coronavirus has changed, not stopped, the way King's Day - or Koningsdag - would normally be celebrated. King's Day has undergone a rebrand and has been renamed Woningsdag - or Housing Day - for 2020!
This year, as no one can take to the streets for a day of drinking, eating, singing, and shopping at markets, everyone’s being encouraged to stay home and celebrate in their gardens or from their balconies!
So, whilst we can’t physically celebrate together we thought one of the best things we could do is shine some light on this beloved holiday and Amsterdam to give everyone a reason to celebrate and toast the Netherlands from their homes during lockdown!
Join in the celebrations
All day there will be online flea markets and online concerts and performances but two key times to remember are:
10am - The Dutch national anthem, The Wilhelmus, will be played and sung by everyone across the country.
4pm - An online national toast hosted by King Willem-Alexander to mark his 53rd birthday.
1. It gets pretty crowded!
Amsterdam has one of the smallest populations of a capital city in Europe! It’s home to just 850,000 people, but on King’s Day, these Amsterdammers are joined by another 1 million visitors who want to join in the festivities and wish their King a very happy birthday!
2. Biking in the Dam!
With the city being so level and relatively small, the bike is the preferred mode of transport. There are over 900,000 bicycles in Amsterdam - and with many available to hire at the roadside for tourists, you too can join in and look like a local.
3. It’s a hub of different nationalities!
Amsterdam is a truly international city with people from over 180 nationalities calling it home - just another reason why it’s such a huge hub in the telecoms world; the amount of content from different countries being consumed means it needs to have excellent Internet infrastructure.
4. Why orange?
Whilst orange doesn’t make an appearance on the flag, it’s still a huge part of Dutch culture and has been for over 400 years!
The current royal dynasty - the House of Orange-Nassau - dates back to Willem van Oranje (William of Orange) who was the leader of the Dutch revolt which led to Dutch independence in 1581.
5. You can connect into the NetIX platform from Amsterdam!
If you’re in any of our on-net data centres in Amsterdam, all you need is a cross connect and you can: access the Global Internet Exchange (GIX), peer remotely at any of our connected Internet Exchanges (IXs), receive Audio/Video content from around the world, broadcast your
Audio/Video content to the world, access the Cloud… the list goes on!
Connect to NetIX from:
Digital Realty (Science Park)
Equinix AM1/AM2 and AM3/AM4
Global Switch Amsterdam
Interxion AMS1
Iron Mountain (formerly EvoSwitch) AMS1
NIKHEF
Matrix 4