05 May 2013

Orange is Everywhere - Sundays in My City

I posted the other day about Queen's Day (now King's Day). Everywhere you looked there was orange.  People wearing orange, orange flags and banners and balloons.  Suits this orange-lover just fine!  If you're wondering why the Dutch celebrate in orange when the colors of the flag are red, white and blue (which you knew, of course), well...

Orange is the color of the Dutch Royal Family. The lineage of the current dynasty -- the House of Oranje-Nassau -- dates back to Willem van Oranje (William of Orange). But while the color orange has royal roots in the Netherlands, today it symbolizes a broader pride in the country and in being Dutch. The Dutch national soccer team wears orange. Dutch olympians wear orange.

There were more people in my little village (it's a national holiday) than I have ever seen.  I might have missed something earlier in the day (I don't know because I was at work) for the big handing over of power but when I finally got there it was basically just a big flea market.  The street was very crowded and since Dutch people are ridiculously tall I get frequent elbows to the face and head when I'm in crowds here and shopping isn't my thing so I didn't stay long.

No joke, the top of my head was at his elbow.
I didn't realize the camera was set to B&W when I took this and it makes me sad because he was so cute in his orange cape and crown!






"Queen's Day, Coronation Day, King's Day, Koningedag (not an actual word)" It was hard to know what to call the day.  According to Google Translate, the caption at the bottom says, "Let's talk a bit about it."  That doesn't make sense to me because the word "talk" doesn't appear but perhaps it's a saying I'm not familiar with. 
I should have rotated it so that the stripes represented the Dutch flag. Here they represent the French flag.  Oops!

That's all I have from Queen's Day.  Check out what's happening in other parts of the world over at Unknown Mami.

Unknown Mami

13 comments:

  1. What an interesting day. Your son is very cute and I think the black and white picture looks great. Nice pin-wheel too. Thanks for sharing your day.

    Dropping by from SIMC.
    Suzy at http://suzyspics.blogspot.co.nz/

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  2. Very cool pics! I love seeing all these glimpses from around the world.

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  3. Don't worry about the bw shot - it's a good picture!
    We don't have a Queen Day nor King Day - we have a president! :)

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  4. What a colorful celebration. Thanks for the history too.

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  5. Love the expression on the little girls face in the 3rd image down!

    Mollyxxx

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  6. Congratulations on your new king! I love the orange too!

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  7. Hail to the King of Orange! I had a friend in school who was very tall - much taller than any other girls or boys. Her parents were from Holland.

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  8. I just love orange! I would have really gotten into that. It looks like it was a lot of fun. Also, I love your black and white shot. I know it was a mistake but to me - it works!

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  9. Such fun and colorful crowd watching pux!!!

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  10. Very fun! How cute are those kids in their orange. The transfer made the news here in Austin as they focused on Prince Charles having attended her coronation and he's still not king.

    Have a great week!
    :-)
    Traci

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  11. That one man really looks quite tall.

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  12. Great entry and I had fun reading it. Whatever the name of the day is called, Dutch people, from small to TALL, appear to enjoy spring break!
    I am always confused with French, Netherlands, and Russia flags...
    Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful evening:)

    Yoshi

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