Every year on the 30th of April, we celebrate our Queen's birthday with a great party. On the night before we were invited at Sjaak's place, and the next day together with Tom's brothers and friends, and people from the NKI we joined the orange-colored crowds in Amsterdam, where we had a fantastic time!
30 April
Queensday is celebrated every year on the 30th of April to celebrate the birthday of our Queen. Queensday was introduced originally by Queen Wilhelmina since 1902. Her daughter Queen Juliana was born on April 30, which made this day a national holiday in The Netherlands when see became officially Queen. Her daughter and the current Queen of the Netherlands decided to keep Queensday on the 30th of April as a tribute to her mother. It remains to be seen if the current crown prince, Willem-Alexander, will keep Queensday in its current form, or that we will have a Kingsday for the first day in over a hundred years...
One thing you will notice on the pictures that everything is colored red, white and blue, but especially orange. Not surprisingly, red, white, and blue are the colors of the Dutch flag, but why the orange? Because it is the color of the Dutch royal family, which descends from Willem van Nassau (1533-1584), prince of Oranje. He led the Dutch against the Spanish King to independency and formed the basis of our current monarchy. As Oranje is dutch for the color Orange, everything to do with the royal family is associated with the color Orange.