Wednesday 23 April 2008

Queens day

In exactly one week the orange fever will hit my country, the netherlands, again. Every year on the 30th of April the whole of Netherland dresses up in orange clothes, wigs, makeup and then proceeds to party the whole day long; drinking large amounts of beer and singing ever increasing offtune ' Oranje boven, leve de koningin'. ( It translates into ' Orange above all, long live the queen', it sounds better in dutch )


30th of April is Queensday in the Netherlands. On that day we celebrate the birthday of our queen and also the fact that we still have a royal house. It's amazing how many germans and french always come to celebrate as well; not so happy now that you discarded your kaiser&king, eh?

Queensday is a day full of traditions. For example on this day people are allowed to sell their old stuff on the street, usually resulting in parents trying to get rid of all the old and unused toys of their children. While in Amsterdam a kind of booze filled orgy erupts with loads of concerts throughout the city, it is tradition that our Queen visits a town and takes a tour of the place. ( it gets even more exciting in a few more sentences )

Now you have to realize that in the Netherlands there are only a few big cities so this usually means that our Queen visits a very small place, a village, every year. This of course is a big thing for a small village, so usually when a place is bestowed with such a honor they make damn well sure they have the event well organized. The Queen arrives and is welcomed by the local mayor who proceeds to show her all the exciting stuff that happens in his town: the local soccer club, little children that sing a song for the queen and the ever present game of 'Koekhappen'. ( Koekhappen is a game where a little cookie is hanged from a string in the air, the goal is trying to eat it without using your hands. It is for this reason our Queen always brings her sons with her so she doesn't have to do that )

And that's basically Queensday. Yes it's corny, but for some reason Queensday is always a day in the Netherlands when everyone is happy and having a great time.

Oh yes, the reason why I started blabbering about Queensday is this commercial I saw last night. Two things you need to know: 1) Our Queen is famous for wearing rather large and extravagant hats; 2) The term ' even apeldoorn bellen' is used in the Netherlands when you need to call your insurance because something very bad happened.

Gim out.

1 comment:

Gerard said...

Have a great day then!

Gerard (Anglachel)