Hello! Today is Koninginnedag, or Queen's Day, here in the Netherlands. It's a complicated thing to describe so I hope I don't leave you confused.
Queen's Day was first started in 1885 to celebrate the fifth birthday of a princess on August 31. When she became queen, it was changed from Princess's Day to Queen's day. When her daughter Juliana took her place as queen, the holiday was moved to her birthday, April 30. Then when her daughter Beatrix became queen, she left the holiday on April 30 as a tribute to her mother. (But also because Beatrix's birthday is in January and no one wants to celebrate in the cold.)
This year was a special Queen's Day because today the former Queen Beatrix passed the throne to her son, Willem-Alexander. It's the first time the Netherlands has had a king in 123 years. He is also very young to be king, only 46, but I guess that feels young to me because he's even younger than my parents and I don't think my parents are old. Apparently he is the youngest monarch in Europe now though, so there is that.
Anyway, basically today is the last Queen's day there will be in a long time. Next year it will be Koningsdag, King's Day, instead. It will be celebrated on his birthday, April 27 (starting in 2015 because next year that day is on a Sunday, so April 26 will be King's Day).
So here's how it basically works (and I only know this from what I've heard, so sorry for lack of detail): On the night of the 29th, everyone goes out and parties to bring in Queen's Day. The next day, there are carnivals and fairs and parties all over the country. Everyone wears orange and hangs their Dutch flags outside of their homes (hanging your country's flag outside is not nearly as common around here as it is in the US) and some people dye their hair and wear fluffy orange feather boas and orange cowboy hats, etc. They have "free markets" on Queen's Day, which is basically a nationwide yard sale in the streets. I guess it's the one day that they are allowed to sell items in the streets without a permit and VAT.
Now, I really wanted to go out and see some of this stuff firsthand but… The ceremony for the king was at one and I really wanted to watch that, so I did. It took a couple of hours. All of the free markets were so far from me that I couldn't walk to them and didn't want to pay for the tram, so I couldn't go to those. Since The Hague is such an international city, not a lot of people are into the whole "wear orange and go crazy" thing but when I left my apartment around four there were still plenty of people all over the city. The crowds in Amsterdam that I saw on TV were rather orange, though. Later, Jenn and I went to a movie and then walked out to the huge carnival that is set up near the parliament building. They were already getting ready to close for the night but it was still nice to look at while it was still there.
Where are you?
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