A Day to end all days: INTERNATIONAL PILLOW FIGHT DAY

Last week I had a high school friend from Singapore over. It so happened that he was coming at a really good time because lots of good stuff was happening in Amsterdam. We watched the Netherlands play Macedonia at the Arena stadium. It was pretty awesome when we entered the stadium area from the stairs. It was amazing to see the whole stadium dressed in orange! The crowd was ecstatic, especially when Holland scored its first goal. By the first half it was 3-0. The second half was pretty boring, nothing much really happened. Macedonia isin't really known to be a soccer powerhouse and they really couldn't muster much against Holland. Final score: 4-0. And my wallet €18 lighter but nonetheless a worthwhile experience.

More importantly, Saturday, April 4 2009, was International Pillow Fight Day. The name pretty much tells you what its all about. On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered at Dam Square (the place to visit if your a tourist) to participate in a massive pillow fight! I seriously had no idea who organised this and why they were doing so. I didn't really care. There was no way that I was going to miss out on it. When I read the invite on Facebook, I knew that this was something I wasn't going to miss. The Pillow Fight was set to start at 5pm that day.

On the day itself, as I was making my way to Dam Square I begun to get a bit apprehensive. There really is such a fine line between what is incredibly fun and that which is just plain stupid. I got to the square about 20 minutes early and actually, there wasn't that many people there. I begun to get even more apprehensive about it. At most, people were going to hit each other for about 10 or 20 minutes. And then they'd get tired and stop and go "now what?" Anyways, by the time it got to 5.55pm, there were heaps of people gathered around the war monument. It was beginning to look up.

At 5.00pm, the organisers rang a buzzer and the pillow fight started. Chaotic is an understatement. You couldn't even run around flailing your pillow because there was just a throng of people gathered together. I managed to spot a few friends in the crowd and when they weren't looking, I made sure that I hit them well (which really isin't that bad cos its a pillow). The pillow fight didn't last 10 minutes. Instead, it went on for about FIF-TY minutes (not just fifty, FIF-TY). By the end of the battle, many pillows had indeed been sacrificed. It was clearly evident by the fact that the ground was covered in pillow feathers. Some people would chuck handfuls of the feathers into the air and it would look like it was snowing.

One incident while during the madness of the pillow fight was when this guy hit me pretty well with his pillow. This guy was huge, easily over 2 metres tall and he was also dressed in these white overalls that made him look like a chemical inspector. There really should have been a height restriction for people like this. He clearly had an advantage over me and so I shouted "Attack the tall guy!" Haha, everyone surrounding turns around to hit him with the pillow. In the midst of the chaos, the incident made me realise how maleable people are. All of us are sheep following something or someone in one way or another. I contemplated shouting out some politically-incorrect war crys but thankfully, my better judgement prevailed.

I just went to the website to find out more about it. Check it out if you want: http://www.pillowfightday.com/
It basically says something like public event blah blah blah non-commercial blah blah blah more public and social cities blah blah...no one needs a reason to hold a massive pillow fight. I can't help but imagine how this world would be different if International Pillow Fight Day was invented before the 20th Century. How many wars would have prevented by such an ingenious idea? Hitler, Stalin, Churchhill and Musolinni should have just gathered a hundred of their best men and had a massive pillow fight to the death (of their pillows).