Queen's Day

Hey, so today was Queen's day. It's an annual celebration in Holland that is centered around (yes, you guessed it) the Queen. The Queen in Holland is a ceremonial figure, however, she and her family command a lot of public attention.

Anyways, to celebrate 'it' everyone goes out and drinks and parties and sells stuff. All over the country people clean out their garages and put their old stuff up for sale. It's a national flea market.

So, we went to Amsterdam. I heard that their were 600,000 people in Amsterdam (plus the people who actually live there). For Freek, me and his parents the day went smoothly, however, others weren't so lucky.

In the city of Apeldoorn there was an attempted attack on the royal family. A unnamed man broke through police barriers and attempted to drive his car into the royal families open air bus. He didn't hit the bus, however, he did hit pedestrians killing five (several more are in critical condition). In response to the attack the festivities were cancelled in every city in Holland, except Amsterdam. The reason that it wasn't cancelled in Amsterdam (as explained to me) was that there were too many people. The mayor said that if he cancelled the festivities the city would be flooded with aimless party goers. So the show went on.

Still, you could feel the heaviness in the air. The concerts were shorter and there were no after parties.

As one person told me "We aren't used to seeing this kind of stuff (in regards to some very graphic videos showing the attack) in Holland. This is the kind of stuff you see coming from America."