Koninginnedag

Today is Koninginnedag, Queen’s Day. The Dutch celebrate the queen’s birthday with street parties and festivals, and wear the color orange to symbolize national and royal pride. We biked into Middelburg this morning to check out what was happening, and saw may people riding bikes decked out with orange streamers, and a few people were wearing crazy hats. It sort of reminded me of the way college kids dress on St. Patrick’s Day in the States, except orange. It was a fun day to have lunch outside and people watch…our local revelers (these cyclists) were not as festive as the Amsterdamers shown in the stock picture above.  But what really fascinated the kids – and I mean truly enthralled them – wasn’t a crazy costume or a dog wearing an orange crown. No, it was a urinal. Sure, it was a very odd looking portable urinal , one of many that had been set up in the central square for tonight’s festivities, but again, it’s just a urinal. Take my kids all over Europe and what do they point out to me over and over again? Yup, a big plastic urinal. Nice. Oh, and as it turns out, we’re relieved that we didn’t visit Amsterdam today as we’d originally debated. Queen Beatrix and her family were paying a customary visit to the neighboring city of Apeldoorn when and a car sped past her bus and crashed into a crowd of spectators.  Sadly,  2 people were killed and a dozen more injured. You can read more on CNN’s international page here. So sad.

 

Photo credits: #1 thehollandring.com, #2 my wonderful husband Jon, #3 onlyinholland.com