Today was Koninginnedag or Queen’s Day which is a national holiday in the Netherlands. Queen’s Day first started on August 31, 1885 which was the birthday of Princess Wilhelmina who later became Queen. When Juliana became Queen, the celebration was changed to April 30 to celebrate her birthday. Queen Beatrix, the current Queen, decided to keep the celebration on April 30 in honor of her mother. But since her real birthday is January 31, it is thought that the main reason to keep the celebration was for practical reasons.
After a late night, I slept in and had a relaxing morning. After lunch, Joel and I headed out to see the festivities. We first walked around Leiden. We noticed many Dutch flags hanging from homes. Many people were also wearing orange, the national color. The Dutch Royal Family is from the House of Orange-Nassau.
On Queen’s Day, people can sell things on the street without a permit. So, many people set up booths or sit on blankets. In Leiden, there were many people sitting on blankets. It sort of reminded me of a city wide garage sale. After Joel and I had walked around Leiden for awhile we went to Amsterdam. We were told that Amsterdam was the best place to go to see the festivities.
When we arrived in Amsterdam, the train station was packed. Many people were arriving to celebrate. When we walked out of the train station, I was amazed at the number of people walking around. Joel and I decided to just follow the people since we assumed that they would know where activities were located. We walked around for quite awhile. There were a lot of food vendors and people selling orange clothing and accessories. There were also people selling almost everything imaginable. It was very interesting to see.
After we had seen a good portion of the city, we decided to head back to Leiden. It was around 8:00 and many people were also heading home. We got on the train and it was packed. We had to stand for about half the journey.
When we got back to Leiden, Joel was on the internet and saw the news headline that there had been an attempted attack on the Queen and the Royal Family. Each year, Queen Beatrix visits one, two, or three towns in the Netherlands. This year she went to Apeldoorn. A man drove his car through the crowd trying to hit the bus that carried the Royal Family. He ended up running into a fence that stood around a monument. The man died later this evening. He killed 5 others and injured 12 people. It was a sad end to Queen’s Day.
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