Everything is Orange

It’s been a busy week in Haarlem.

Last Saturday evening saw the arrival of the Bloemencorso, a parade of flower festooned floats along a 40 km route through the main bulb growing areas of the Netherlands.

We had a similar event when we lived in the US. Our hometown, Pasadena, hosted an annual parade on New Year’s Day, a totally OTT flag wavin’, batton twirlin’  extravaganza which took two hours to march its way past the end of our street. People camped out all night to get a view of the Rose Parade floats, most of which were sponsored by huge American corporations and decorated with thousands of flowers which must have been flown in from all around the world. They certainly weren’t home-grown in Los Angeles.

The Netherlands is a small country and they do things differently here.  Yes, the Bloemencorso was modest in comparison to the Rose Parade, but everyone involved in making the floats, in taking part, lives, eats and breaths bulbs. I know flower growing is a commercial business, but what impressed me most, was even in the darkness, when you couldn’t actually see the flowers, you could smell them; a fantastic floral fragrance wafting into the night air.

 And talking of the people on the floats, I know I keep on about the wacky Dutch sense of humour, but if anyone remembers those old international European Jeux Sans Frontiers/It’s a Knock Out TV programmes of the 1970’s, when teams from Nantwich took on teams from remote villages in Holland and Belgium, that’s just what the Bloemencorso reminded me of.  Lots of happy, dancing, waving Dutch people doing stupid things in the most craziest of costumes.

Monday was Kings Day and the opportunity for more partying. Orange attire is compulsory as the Dutch celebrate their royal family and off-load their old junk (is there a connection?).  Local parks and streets are transformed into massive car boot style free for alls.  You literally could sell anything and I’m pretty sure there were even people trying to offload their kids (especially if they could play a musical instrument). 

 Other entrepreneurs just opened up their front door and charged passersby 50c to use their loo.

We had the in-laws to staying for the weekend, and although they are relatively young at heart, we didn’t subject them to the Kings Day mega-party that spilled out on the streets during the afternoon and evening. That’s another thing the Dutch do really well. They know how to have a good time, especially if it involves music and beer.

What they don’t know how to do, however, is signpost things. Today rain was predicted so we headed into Amsterdam to cross three more museums off our list.  We started out at FOAM, the photography museum which was not so much a museum, as an eclectic collection of photographs in a rabbit warren of a building with no directional signage and some highly dangerous unlit stairs. Still, the carrot cake on sale in the museum café was an absolute delight, and worthy of a photograph of its own.