Guess what these men are doing. Let me explain Queensday to my foreign friends. Every year on April 29 we celebrate the birthday of our queen. Actually the queen has her birthday in january and this is the birthday of the mother of this queen who was queen before, but january is too cold for parties in the streets so we keep the old birthday.
On Queensday everybody is allowed to sell everything to everybody without licence, and this is what we are doing. So days before people take care they have a good spot in de city to sell their things, and they write with big letters on the street: BEZET! Occupied! Some people even sleep in the street to keep their place occupied. Then they drag out everything from their houses they want to get rid of, furniture, old pots and pans, and try to sell it. Kids sell their dolls and old toys they feel they are too old for. People sell the clothes that don’t fit anymore because they have become too fat.
I’m lucky (or not so lucky) to live in the middle of the city in the old part, where sometimes it is so crowded nobody can move. Every year I have to make a decision: to flee the city and have a quiet day somewhere else, or stay in the city and join the big party. There is no in between because the noise in my house is terrible with all the shouting and laughing and singing and I can’t work.
So this year I decided to join. I have too many books in my house, and soon I would have to move out because with all the books there would not be enough space left for me and my cats. So I decided to take out a lot of books and sell them to people for one euro each. It is a lot of fun, because it makes people happy to go home with some books cheap, and there is a lot to talk about. Two girls bought almost thirty books. At the end of the day I felt rich, because I earned more then two hundred euro.
The other thing we do is everybody wears something orange. This is not because we like the settlers, but because orange is the colour of the royal family, after their name: van Oranje. The settlers stole the colour from us and they need to give it back. Like they should give back the country to the Palestinians. So everybody in Holland looks like an idiot wearing orange, and behaves like an idiot, including me. Everybody who can make music makes music also the people who really can’t make music. Everybody who has a boat goes out on the canals. People dance in the streets. And everybody drinks a lot of beer and gets mildly drunk or not so mildly. Now this is the problem. People who drink a lot of beer have to pee a lot. Normally you can go into a bar or restaurant to go to a toilet, but everything is full. Now in former years the men peed in the canals or against the houses, which is very bad for the houses and smells for a week. So by law ‘wild peeing’ is forbidden. Now the city council puts extra toilets in the streets, just for peeing on Queensday and just for the men – which is unfair except that women don’t do their peeing standing up and it would look funny if we did it in the streets. So this is what you see the men do in the first picture. The women have to find other solutions or not drink so much.
This lady is not from Gaza but from Amsterdam. She is the only one who managed to look normal. Also I guess she didn’t drink beer, because the muslims are the only ones who don’t drink even on Queensday. So she is the only one not shouting and singing and dancing.
Today everybody has a hangover, there is a lot of mess in the streets that needs to be cleaned up, and we return back to normal. Sort of.
Haha! If I replace the word “orange” with “green”, it almost decribes Paddy’s day – Irelands national holiday on March 17th.
Drunk people (replace Heineken with Guinness) and salmonella sausages all over the place…!
But this time also it was too cold for parties in the streets, in fact!
By the way: these men (on the photograph) aren’t peeing on the queen….
The name of the Dutch royal family Van Oranje-Nassau stems, as for the first part, from the French princedom Orange that was herited by William of Orange or the Silent (16th century). Only respectively from 1806 to 1810 (as a part of France) and from 1815 the Netherlands became a kingdom. The country always had been a republic before.
It’s a good thing to party and be “dancing in the street” (Martha and the Vandella’s), but in my opinion the royalty may be thrown away today as a anachronism. After all, the Netherlands are a republic with a queen as the head of state, said the late prince Claus.
Because the women can’t drink too much (lack of wild peeing possibilities, although I used to know a girl who peeed standing), they can’t get as drunk as a lot of men. So that’s in their benefit! A blessing! 🙂
Correction: the Kingdom Holland (1806-1810) had a brother of Napoleon Bonaparte’s as the king, but officially was not a part of France. From 1810 to 1813 the country was a part of France indeed.
Now, now, Olav. I’m all for doing away with the monarchy, but throwing them away I find a just a little excessive. (Besides, it would have to be a rather large garbage bin just to hold the queen’s hat!)
Come to think of it, perhaps someone could explain why the queen’s hat is so big. Is it perhaps some kind of an “anti-terrorism” measure to protect from above? Or is she just trying to outdo her British counterpart?
@ Charles (4):
OK, Charles, you got a point there. Perhaps we can sell the monarchy, in little pieces, in the street the next Queen’s day?
Perhaps we can “privatize” the monarchy. After all the current Dutch government wants to liberalize everything it can and unleash “market forces”.
This would also mean that anyone could own shares in the Dutch royal family. Also the queen would be answerable to the annual general shareholders’ meeting, so that would be more democratic than the current situation.
Just think of the business opportunities: merchandizing, television rights, albums, portrait rights (every Dutch euro coin has the queen’s picture on it. The royal family could even be licensed to countries that don’t have a king or queen. Even a Las Vegas show: “Queen Bee, Prince Willy and the Dancing Princesses”.
Just think of the possibilities Olav 🙂
Whatever, guys! It’s not important. The photo’s here are fantastic! They tell of the fun and chaos but not of the cold! Boy, was it cold last Saturday!
By the way, Anja, Queensday’s not on the 29th usually but on the 30th. It was last Saturday, the 29th because they wouldn’t celebrate it on a Sunday. Sundays are religious days for a lot of Christians. So, that’s why in a lot of places also most of the shops were closed on Satuday! Bummer! 🙁 Good thing I got all my shopping done on Friday.
Thank you Lydia, I forgot because I’m not so monarchistic, and may be not christian enough, I forget that we live in a country that has not solved the issue of seperating religion and state very well (although we like to blame other people who don’t)
Quite so!! So true… indeed. 🙁
@Olav: for centuries we have been a republic with a royal family:). Time and again we elected a “stadhouder”. Please note: that’s not about “stad=city”. A ‘stadhouder’ was ‘holding’ the power of the emperor instead (stad) of the emperor. But we had abolished that emperor 🙂 and choose children of William (’the Slilent’) of Orange.
And yes, the settlers should find another colour. No, they should give the land back.
And Anja, your photos were fantastic!