Monday, April 30, 2007

Queen's Day in the Netherlands


On this beautiful Monday we are all celebrating in the Netherlands. Today it's Koninginnedag (Queen's day). This is not Queen Beatrix's birthday (January 31) but it used to be her mother's birthday and because of the better weather conditions in April she decided not to change the date of our national celebrations.
If you look at the sunny Dutch streets today, you see smiling people all having a good time. Just have a look at this selection in Google (using the word Koninginnedag) and you will get an idea. I will also upload some pics on my photo blog. Pic: Robin in front of our house. Photo impression

5 comments:

Art said...

Happy Koninginnedag to you and your family, Paul.

Carol Douglas said...

The verdict among teenaged girls in my house is that Robin is cute. So are the flags on your house. So are the windmills and the geese on your photo blog. Cute country you got there, Paul!

Meanwhile, here in the States we are celebrating, "Day without a mass murder somewhere." Somehow I think Koninginnedag seems like more fun.

Anonymous said...

Have a great Koninginnedag day.

Cori said...

I'm curious about the question of Dutch patriotism. It always seemed to me that the Dutch weren't particulaerly patriotich (or at least certainly not nationalistic) but yet on koninginnedag quite a bit of 'Dutchness' comes out! What do you think, Paul? Would you say the Dutch (generally) are patriatich??

Paul said...

We are just proud to be Dutch and most of us support our national football team (oranje) and the royal family is also very popular. This is no sign of extreme patriotism - it is all in a party atmosphere and most of us can laugh about ourselves too. I think it just has to do with the fact that we are a small country (if you look at the territory) but a proud people. Most of us don't have a nationalistic 'superiority complex', we just like to celebrate our 'Dutchness' and the things that keep us together as a people.
Some decades ago the Dutch people liked to look down on our neighbours from Germany (because of the war) and Belgium (well, just because they are not Dutch), but nowadays there is more respect for our neighbours and most of the flag waving and celebrating is just because it is nice to live here and have some fun.
But - below the surface - there is also this irrational nationalistic feeling... Don't touch our queen or other members of the royal family and don't make fun of our orange football team, because that will bring out the best-and the worst-in us!

Our southern neighbours don't like the fact that so many people ask them to name 5 famous Belgians. They even made a website about this... ha, ha
http://www.famousbelgians.net/

And read this (in Dutch) if you want to see how the relationship between Dutch and German people is improving:

http://www.parool.nl/nieuws/2007/MEI/04/o1.html