Kings Day and other Dutch stuff

Yesterday was Kings Day which is the day the Netherlands goes orange. It's basically party day – a national holiday specifically for the purposes of consuming large volumes of alcohol and listening to live music all in the name of celebrating the reigning monarch’s birthday (this year King Willem was 50). Here in The Hague we found it a somewhat subdued affair compared to Haarlem where the party always starts quite early with a mass secondhand sale of household goods – you simply set up a stall outside your house and sell off your old junk. In the Hague itself there were very few people selling off their old junk – maybe a sign of the city’s large international community, or the fact that people in the Hague are so posh they don’t have old junk.

There were several pop-up stages for live music around the city centre, and pop-up bars – of course, and a huge fun fair selling the largest bags of candyfloss I think I’ve ever seen. (The Dutch have very sweet teeth). The Dutch for funfair is kermis – an easy word to remember when learning a language by word association. Think Kermit the frog on a big wheel.

Another Dutch word I have recently learned is woonwagonwooner.  This little gem I picked up whilst watching an edition of Midsumer Murders with Dutch subtitles. It was used as a translation for ‘traveller’ – not someone setting off on a long journey but someone who lives in a caravan (literally living-wagon-dweller).  I’m still trying to think of a suitable word association analogy although with the days being ticked off now until I move back to the UK permanently it’s a little too late to be worrying about learning Dutch now.

Last weekend was the Bloemencorso – another wonderful Dutch word.  The Bloemencorso is a flower parade, and it takes all day to make its way from the bublfields of Nordwijkerhout, near the Keukenhof Gardens to Haarlem. We headed up to Haarlem to see the floats parked up on Sunday morning, bumped into our old neighbours, and thought to ourselves all over again how lucky we were to spend two years living in such a beautiful city. 

So, it's been a week of doing lots of Dutch stuff - which also involved a hazardous trek to the supermarket avoiding hail and sleet showers, as well as ducking falling masonry from men working four stories high on unnetted scaffolding. and been run over by a man and a dog on a motorbike.