It's Good to be King...or Queen

I suppose there is one benefit to living in a country with a monarchy. What would that be? Well, celebrating the royal birthday, of course! Holland has had a ruling queen for ... well, for a while. Her son is due to take over sometime soon (sorry, I don't really follow politics, and foreign politics even less), but for now (at least as far as I know), the people here still celebrate the queen's birthday on the 30th of April.

I was pretty unclear as to whole concept of the thing, but I was told that everyone is supposed to wear orange and celebrate the birthday of the queen. Why orange? Well, you've seen those horribly orange team shirts that the Dutch always wear, right? It's not because they find the color so wonderful, though I personally like orange at certain times. My not-so-good understanding is that it all started with the House of Orange, some several hundred years ago. That was the name of the royal family, of course, and the color stuck. Lucky Dutch! Well, at least they are usually tall and thin here, otherwise I suppose there would be the risk that they would look like a giant patch of pumpkins.

Ahem. Okay, then! Well, I was invited to celebrate Queen's Night in Den Haag (yes, it's not enough to celebrate just one day, they have to make it 2 here) and then Queen's Day in Amsterdam the next day. I figure, why not? I've never celebrated it before, might be fun. Well, I suppose I'm just not adventurous enough, because Den Haag was so overwhelming for me that I didn't even make it to Amsterdam the next day. 275,000 people packed into the downtown area of a city, and most of them drunk. The part I really didn't like was how crowded it was, and the fact that I was usually chest-high on everybody. I mean, the only people here I even have a chance of being taller than are the kids! And I mean the little kids, even then.

But if you like parties, I suppose this would have been a good place to go. Live music in at least 4 different parts of the city, beer all OVER the place (and some funky coconut flavoured alcohol in little test tubes), and then of course the normal county fair-type booths with prizes to be won. Oh, and I now know for sure what marijuana smells like. *chuckle* No, I was never really sure before, ok? I lead a sheltered life, for all that I gambled with death or maiming a few times. *grin*

Anyway, all the cigarettes being held up near my eyes, all the bodies pressed against me basically freaked me out so we went home and decided to skip Amsterdam the next day. Good thing, too! There were 20 arrests or so in Den Haag that night, and a fairly large riot the next day in Amsterdam because a couple of people pulled the emergency stop in a couple of trains and therefore delayed all trains coming into and out of Amsterdam for the next several hours. The damage done was incredible. I'm more than happy I wasn't there!

Nope, I think I prefer to be quiet and low-key. Makes for more fun when I break out my alter-ego. *wink*