Deafening Silence

During football championships everyone and their dog (literally) are donned in orange.  It's like Queen's Day...  an extended version, that lasts as long as the Dutch team is playing.  It's actually one of the many reasons why I love the Dutch.  They're proud of their country.  And that pride includes the people (namely the national football team) who represent it. 

Holland hadn't made it so far in the World Cup since the 1970's.  So the past few weeks have been nothing short of exciting. There's no way you couldn't get into the football spirit with the energy that was pulsing around the city streets.  The orange clothing, the orange streamers, the orange hats, hair, sunglasses, vuvuzelas...

And after the team won each game in the championship, people would party all night long.  As in, ALL night.  As in, you're still awake at 2:30am because of all the cheering and vuvuzela blowing outside. Thankfully, you're consoled in knowing that everyone partying will most likely be working in a few hours just like you. 

Once Holland made it to the finals, the excitement grew ten fold.  The day before the game (not to mention the day of), even tourists were walking around in orange. 

When Sunday finally arrived, the streets were flooded with people, hours before the game began.  Not only were over 100,000 people filling up the grassy area of Museumplein, there were thousands of others filling up pubs and cafe's around the city to watch the game.  The noise of excitement echoed to the ends of the country... at least.

But the moment Spain won, there wasn't a sound that filled the air. Depression set in quick.  As the hundreds of thousand people shuffled back home, you could hear a pin drop.

It was too quiet.  Eerily quiet.  Like a ghost town, except... with people instead of tumbleweed.