April 30 is Koninginnedag – the Queen’s birthday. Well, not the current Queen’s birthday, but still a celebration of the Queen and national unity. The Wikipedia link gives more info, but basically, the 29th is a major party night and the 30th is a gigantic garage sale and everyone wears a lot of orange during the whole thing. The garage sale actually starts the night of the 29th, but then the drinking starts and the loud carousing. We did take a wander outside during the nighttime festivities, but it was pretty loud for Liam and too crowded to shop well. Ivo did keep offering to sell Liam, but we didn’t get any good offers.
Of course, we were all still jet-lagged, especially Liam, so we didn’t really get an early start out on Queen’s Day to check out the stuff. Here we are on our way out – note the orange:
Commando Liam:
The garage sale outside our door. Not much of interest really – mostly junk, even more so than your average garage sale.
Face painting and music. There were also a lot of kids playing violins and other instruments with hats out, I guess trying to recoup the cost of music lessons.
The garage sale on another street.
Offering royal coaching – not sure what that entailed, but I did see first see him leading someone blindfolded through the street.
These folks are offering their petting and cuddling their ferrets for a small fee:
Back at the house (we’ll miss living in the centre) for food and warmth. Getting ready to go out again.
Orange father and son:
Lost in a sea of orange.
We did end up buying a few books and toys for Liam and a few other things, but mostly it was interesting to see the wide variety of things people offered for sale. The goods were boring, but the services and games were interesting.