The royal inauguration

I write a bit about Queensday every year in my lj. Despite being a country full of opportunistic judgemental hypocrits, we still like to celebrate the birthday of our queen every year. Sure, there are comments about the cost of the royal household, and whether we need royalty or not, but overal our royal house is an excellent face for our country, a face that opens a lot of doors for us internationally. The royal family earns about 5 biljon per year for the Netherlands by playing the game of politics well so I am not complaining about their salary. Queen Beatrix announced her retirement in January and monday was the last queensday. The day will transfer to another date (27th of april, birthday of our king, instead of 30th of april, birthday of the mother of our former queen) and be called Kingsday. Boo!!! After 123 years of being reigned by a queen, we now have a king.

( Read more... )

It was a memorable day, spent in good company and ended up on the balcony of Mr.R. with a bottle of oranjebitter (liquor made from oranges) and a good conversation in the warm afternoon sun. It was the first time for me to not be in Utrecht during queensday, scavaging the market with Ikaiya, but it was good. Time for a change: long live the King!

*for this occassion, I had to search for the 6th verse of our national anthem on my smartphone so I could sing along, as I can't remember ever singing more then the first verse. Apparently it is tradition to sing the first and sixth verse, leaving out the other 13 verses on account of nobody being able to remember the whole thing.