It has been a while since we went to Amsterdam to celebrate Queens day or rather Kings day, since the succession of Willem Alexander last year. Today we (my husband Ron and I) wanted to give you an impression of Amsterdam Kings day 2014. For anybody who is not Dutch.. customs are:
1) try and sell any rubish you have lying around in the attic, by spreading it on the pavement in a busy street.
2) try to earn some money in whatever way possible.
3) always wear something orange, the weirder the better. As our king is Willem Alexander van Oranje (=orange).
Right. We have established this. Of course I went for fashionably orange. Hey… I have a duty to fulfil. I will leave “weird” to others. Plenty of that about as you will see.
Ron took a picture of me before we headed off to the centre of town (above), to make sure that there would be at least one decent photo of me. I am wearing my skinny jeans, a new blue silk top, a new found chain necklace (YAY!.. stop the search Dan, unless you can find a fuchsia one) and my soft orange brogues. They are sooooo soft. They are the first pair of shoes on which I can walk for hours with bare feet and not get any blisters. You have seen them once before and I am so going to buy more shoes at Dominio. They are worth every penny. And a special mention for the bag, which is a present from Anja, my friend and part-time neighbour.
Below: we will start with weird. Fun, but weird in my eyes.
Below: we have photographed a lot of women in lovely orange clothes or attractive or at least somewhat decent. Here are two fine examples. The first lady in the wide skirt tried to buy my bag (no way Anja, no way).
Below: this is what Amsterdam (or should I say most of The Netherlands) looks like on Kings day.
Below: we headed into Haarlemmerdijk and spotted this antique bath. When I photographed it, the lady in the blue jacket said: “Stop… you have to pay one euro to photograph this bath”… (everybody tries to make a buck on this day).
Below: after which exclamation Ron said: “I will pay you two euros if I can step into the bath together with you…” Her son handed here a life-jacket and in she went. We had a good couple of laughs.
Below: further down the street this lady looked particularly good.
Below: let us not forget the men…
Below: we went to the canals and wandered around. The children are the cutest. Because I got all “ahhh” at a lot of kids, I made collages, in an attempt to keep the number of photos to an acceptable level (did not succeed).
Below: you will also find a few collages with “hats” or better said: anything orange on their heads.
Below: money schemes. They pose themselves as games, like: “try and balance a coin on this orange in a bowl of water. If you succeed, you win 10 x your wager. If you fail, tough…!.” Of course these things are tried at home and you never win.
Below: nevertheless, Ron had a go at one of these schemes. He tried to eat 5 cookies (speculaasjes) in one minute.. Hahaha, failed miserably. (By the way, I don’t like hats on him. He loves them..)
Below: some more children. The one on the left (Rose) made the cup cakes and polishes your nails. Also children playing an instrument (and/or singing) are a big hit at Kings day.
Below: some more “hats”.
Below: some more ladies in orange clothes worth photographing.
Below: and not just the young ones….
Below: three cheers for this inventive lady: our flag colours down her legs.
Below: believe it or not, I did not buy anything. If this little number had been in my size instead of XS, I would have bought it. (Suzanne: it is from the same range as that lovely dress you wore to the butterflies. My heart jumped when I saw it. Alas…)
Below: we went for a coffee in a new place at Rozengracht where they sell macarons. No need to go to Paris for that anymore. We met this nice Australian couple and had a very pleasant chat. (If they do have a look at my blog tomorrow -I gave my card haha-, this photo will be a surprise. LOL)
Below: another man.. imposing as our king.
Below: a shiny queen.
Below: it was so much more quiet than in other years, but still enough people about. We left our dog Charlie at home after her walk. No need to stress her in this crowd.
Below: if you wanted to have your picture taken with the dog (called George) it cost you one euro. Poor soul. The owner assured me that on all other 364 days of the year this dog gets pampered.
Below: there is our former queen Beatrix and her son Willem Alexander on the housefront.
Below: OK weird again. These suits are apparently very popular for lying on the couch at home. They could not sell any to me.
Below: more “hats”. 
Below: why not another picture of a canal? There are more than enough of them. And on Kings day a lot of boats are on the canals.
Below: this is what the boat people look like.
Below: nifty little clothes hangers.
Below: more orange.
Below: what a lovely and beautiful family. Their little daughter is in one of the children collages above.
That was it folks. A lovely sunny day with an orange glow. Hope you enjoyed it.
A special thank you to Sylvia of 40+Style, who encouraged me to shoot photos in “raw” and to use the programme “Lightroom” to correct mistakes in my photos. I am learning this programme bit by bit. And as you can see above, my pictures are improving so much.
Greetje
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