The Dutch Files

To let you know what is going on in Dutchyland today I am re-posting a post of 2 years ago. It’s Koninginnedag in The Netherlands today (a.k.a. Queen’s Day) and aside from the fact that it will turn orange everywhere today -just like when there’s soccer championships going on- it is one of the most festive days in Dutchyland. Sucks that today the weather is not cooperating though… Blegh

Let me share a Dutch custom with you, just for the fuck of it… Hell, I don’t care if you are interested. I feel like telling you and you will bloody well listen!

On April 30 every year our country celebrates Queen’s Day. It is the day we celebrate our Queen’s birthday (which is actually January 31, but oh well)… Now I am not sure what the custom is with you guys, but I assume that by celebrating a birthday you would think: cake, candles, maybe a birthdaycard, a present…

Nu-uh… Nothing Of The Sort!!! Wanna know how we celebrate Queen’s Day?

We go absolutely crazy: we put on orange clothes, funny hats, paint our faces and hair orange…
Poor liters and liters of beer down our throats…
We make noise, we sing, we scream, we flirt, we are one big partying mass on boats, along canals, it is like a fucking all orange Woodstock!
Great, isn’t it?

Oh and then of course we take all the crap stuff out of our garages and closets and wherever the fuck we have it stashed and turn whole cities into one big junk sale and try to sell our junk to our neighbours and friends (and the stuff that isn’t working anymore preferably to people we dón’t know)… and the money we earned by doing that we either spend buying other peoples junk or more beer…

It is one of the best days of the year: offices are closed, schools are closed and it is MAJOR partytime…

What? Come again? The Queen? We make her and her whole Royal family visit a city or town in The Netherlands where we make them go through hours and hours of typical Dutch fun: I think in the past 25 years or so they have watched a lifetime’s worth of clogdancing, childrens choirs, musicschool performances and best of all: koekhappen… (meet our crownprince…)

They are probably the only family that is NOT looking forward to April 30. Come to think of it… Kinda sucks… on your OWN birthday… but hey… what do you want me to do about it?

I am telling you, if you want to do the full Dutch experience you should at least once in your life do Koniniginnedag!

WIKI on KONINGINNEDAG

Did you know that “Goldmember” is DUTCH?

Yeah he is…

And yeah… I am not sure either whether that is a good thing….

Johan van der Smut, better known as Goldmember, is a fictional villain played by Mike Myers (John Travolta played the character in a cameo at the end of the film). The name was inspired by the James BondAuric Goldfinger. Goldmember’s Dutch origins and character traits were, according to Myers, inspired by an episode of the HBO TV series villain Real Sex featuring a Dutchman who operated a “sex barn” north of Rotterdam. The man’s distinct forms of expression caught Myers’ attention while he was writing.^[2]

Yesterday I went to see the annual Flower Parade. It’s route passes by about 50 m from my frontdoor, so it’s pretty relaxed going there. I am not too big on watching the Flower Parade myself. I’ve lived along the route ever since I was 4 and we all know what happens to that stuff that your parents máke you do year after year: once you venture out on your own that stuff usually takes a backseat. So this too.

However, we have several foreign PhD students at the department and the other day I figured that it might be nice to invite them over to come see the Flower Parade with me and The Kid. So I did. Unfortunately La Bra-Dutch couldn’t make it. She is having 2 Brazilian friends over and they preferred going to Brugge (Belgium) over the weekend, but 3 others could and were very enthusiastic. So I had one Romanian (yes, Fab) male PhD student and 2 female PhD students from Iran and Germany come over yesterday. As the town is closed off about an hour before start of the parade they came over early and I made them a nice lunch. Then we went outside in the bright and sunny Spring weather (a first this year!) and watched the parade for 1.5 hour and afterwards we went back to my place for drinks.

I like showing Dutch shit to foreign friends (yes, babe, get your hot sexy ass over here soon!) and so I had a really nice time. I’ve got a somewhat seen it-done it-been there feel about many Dutch sights, but I LUV being a tourguide and showing friends a good time. Some of the Flower Parade pics are in the slideshow below. The rest of it is on my FlickR account. Just click the badge in the far right sidebar and it will take you there!

That was a great first day of my week off!

Saturday = Pimpin’ Day and today’s bitch is a long time bloggy friend, just like last weeks’ one. And not to mention she was my Blog Momma for a while. When I got fed up with being on the limited Wordpress.com blogplatform she graciously offered to host me as a subdomain on her hosting. For free! I’ve since ventured out on my own but that is by far one of the nicest things any of my bloggy friends ever did for me. So let me not waste any time introducing to her to ya’ll:

It’s Lucy from Lucy’s Dilemma!

She is honest, speaks her mind, takes no prisoners (although the IPC -idiot pen clicker- is pretty close getting there), she curses allthefuckingtime, her job is “To Buy Shit With Other People’s Money”, she apparently has a very talented tongue (as a pimp it is always good to have bitches with talented tongues), and as the subtitle of her blog tells you, is “entertaining, but not entirely appropriate” and that in my book is the best way to be!

This woman is mah kinda bitch!

And OK, because she’s such a frigging hawt and cool bitch, I’ll forgive her for her running into LOL Catz on her blog every now and then… So please go over to see Luz Cat! She lolling away in the right hand sidebare over there. Can you see her catty bitchy eyes luring you over there? Yep, that’s her! And you should go, cuz ya know… If you don’t she’ll be an unhappy Luz Cat and we no want that! Now do we?

Obviously by now it’s abudantly clear to all of you that after visiting you should haul your bitchin’ asses back over here. Just leave the IPC with Lucy, ok? Don’t let her con you into taking him with you. I know she’s been trying to get rid of him for ages, but he sure as hell to the naw ain’t coming to this here blog!

Have a great Saturday!!! I’ll be having quite the international one, more about that tomorrow. It all has to do with a Dutchy Chick and her Dutchy son, a Romanian, an Iranian, a German-ian, lunch, drinks and loads of tulips and shit! Sorta a Tulip Orgy Party… I promise there will be pictures, if you promise to get your minds out of that gutter again, sheesh!

There is still vacancies in the pimpin’ quarters for the upcoming weeks. Wanna be pimped? Don’t be shy… It won’t hurt… much… I promise!!! Go HERE for information!