Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Koninginnedag
Hey Everybody!!So, here there's our last adventure, the Queen's Day!! If you want to have a look at the pictures, as always, you can go in the site http://picasaweb.google.it/ellyon17/Koninginnedag2007
So, what is it... the Queen's Day is THE national holiday in the Netherlands, and it is the birthday of the Queen. The 30 of April is actually the birthday of the former queen, Queen Giuliana, but this one, Beatrix, decided to keep this date because her birthday is in January and it's not the best period for an outdoor party in the Netherlands....
Originally the Queen's day is famous because is the only day in the year when people are allowed to sell everything on the street, to have the 'vrijmarkt', the free market. Now it is still like this, so you can buy literaly any shit you like, but it also a good occasion to have music and concerts and different events all around the city.
Well, I think that it is definitively the best day to visit Amsterdam! It's incredibly full of people, there was almost one million people around the city, and markets everywhere, and music, big stages, small stages, everything you ever wanted but you've never dared to ask it's there for you. Rivers of beer and food, baked ham, orange sweeties and cakes, really, everything!
We have walked around the city for something like 10 hours, we've seen some of the biggest events in the city but it was really impossible to attend to all of them, as there where tens of big concerts in the same moment in different parts of the city.
Of course the Queen didn't show up, she probably prefer to stay in small towns shaking hands to small children, but dutch people where really fond in taking fun of her all around the city.
It was a great great party, probably the best I've never seen in my life! But now... here I am back to work, because these Dutch don't celebrate the 1st of May (probably the only country in the world), and waiting for the next year Queen's day.....
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26 comments:
and now the question: are we sure she decided to keep the party on April, 30th because of the weather or maybe because they want to replace and overshadow that communists party with one theoretically more "national"?
the answer may be not, since they use to do very free things in this day, but...
anyway it was really great!!!
there were musicians of every kind all around the city and people living on the main streets used to open their windows, put the acoustic boxes of their stereos on the balcony and let them play!!
(as we all have seen in "La Haine")
great
I appreciate the beatiful photos of Koninginnedag(difficult word..uff) I think it's great experience of party.
However remain open the question: why Dutch people dont celebrate the first of may (work celebration)? It's yet well known that it's not a communist party..it's a day to celebrate many workers that died for work, or to think about the sense of work. Italy is a republic based on the work, not a monarchy, so I celebrate the first of may, after all it's difficult to think a party for Emanuel of Savoy...
the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind...
Well, we can always celebrate a day for the Vittorio Emanuele in which everybody goes in his private sailing boat (and every Italian has one: Berlusconi said that from his window in his villa in Sardinia he can see a lot of sail boats) and we shoot each other....
actually (be prepared to the "boring-time")...
the labour day's mother was a march in Melbourne (aka in a kingdom),
even if the only places in the world where it is not a day off is in The Netherparts and in Denmark (so the countries i love) which are both monarchies...
nonetheless i'm already supposed to work 8 hours per day so I don't need to protest on May, 1st...
actually i'm working less than 8 hours per day, so maybe my employers have to protest on me...
finally: come on!!!
Italy is not based on work!
maybe in not-work, probably in delayed-work, or in public assistance, but I wouldn't say it's based on work...
but it's also a republic that repudiates war...
what a funny country
fan-cool
Anyway, I don't see why Berlusconi is not in the first line for the 1st of May concert, or any 1st of may manifestation, as the Workers Day has been organised for the first time in New York (so it cannot be a comunist celebration) by the Knight of the Work, our Cavaliere is indeed one of them....
Yes I agree that italian republic it's not based on the work (if so it's written in constitution), but perhaps in dark work, co-co-co works and similar.
I disagree with Ermes because his preference with monarchy, and for his idea of work, for me also only two hours of work are a true work. The phisics works maybe are veery different from biologists work...
Now, because I am an hard worker, I enjoi watching 1° maggio Concert on TV...
no no, wait. I do not like monarchy!
there is a misunderstanding. I do like Denmark and The Netherparts but it's a chance they're both monarchies (is it? no, i'm kidding...), as they are both northern not-german countries or they're both an 'a' and at least an 'e' in the name of the country...
and btw my "biological" work is to be "physically" here, at work and that's what i'm doing...
now let me watch the regattas
Anyway1: I think that the new monarchy cannot really be compared with the old monarchy... And anyway U.K. and the netherlands where mainly the first countries where they had democracy, as they had a constitutional monarchy... so probably that's why nobody really cares about the Queens and Kings...
Anyway2: In Italy we actually need a celebration for workers but we should start to think about the future dirigents, and not only the actual labourers... indeed the Workers day, as we keep calling it, it is actually the Labour Day and I'm a bit tired about the rights of Labourers... let's try to think about the rights of the people who can actually solve the future of a country...
so?
do you want to abolish the Labour day?
or the labour? or the day?
I don't want to abolish anything I just think that if a country feels the need to celebrate the Labor day should also give to this day a more modern meaning... as in everything... so I think that it is very good and fair to have this day, but it should be seen in a more modern prospective. If you think about it, it's not completely a joke the fact that was first introduce by the "cavalieri del lavoro"... now this title is given to a differnt kind of people (not thinking about berlusconi), that provides a different kind of jobs... so I just say we should think about it...
speaking of this: one of my Chinese friend just told me there they have a whole week off for this occasion...
then I was thinking we can rename this day to "people chatting and blogging instead of working"-Day
I'm for an entire month off!
Vorrei fare un commento, in italiano, perchè troppo difficile esprimerlo in una lingua a me poco nota, sull'olanda. Dall'italia, attraverso l'immaginario collettivo, i giornali, e i media, l'olanda appare un po' come un grande paese dei balocchi, dove ci sono solo feste,balli,sballi trasgressioni e curiosità. Anche oggi su repubblica c'è un articoletto, con la foto dell'arca di Noè, ricostrita in tutti i particolari (animali compresi) da un facoltoso creativo olandese. Analogamente, mi è capitato di leggere altre notizie dello stesso tipo sull'olanda:l'auto dell'amore, il gay-pride etc. La stessa festa della regina dà l'impressione di non essere tanto "seria" e in quanto tale di contrapporsi a un primo maggio serioso. Ora mi domando, ma siamo noi italiani che la vediamo così, o è una immagine stereotipata diffusa che gli olandesi non fanno niente per cambiare? Voi che vivete lì a contatto con la gente seria che lavora, e i problemi quotidiani (perchè ci saranno anche quelli no?)cosa mi dite di questa percezione, come la commentate, e soprattutto gli olandesi se ne rendono conto? Sandra
lavoro biologico? ghou.
mz
my impression is that they want just to enjoy the life as much as possible. Of course there are works to do and problems to solve but when it's possible they try to be more easy as they can (of course the fact they are rich helps)...
i think in italy we are stressed and we hate each other (the guy from the post office, the police man, the prime minister, the people from the south, etc...) while here they try not to be like that doing every bullshit they have in mind (if it doesn't hurt the others)
and about the queen's day party, when I asked my didgeridoo teacher if it was a sort of nationalistic party she answered me: "It's a party! don't complain about parties!"
btw mine it's a biased opinion: i love them
ma voi non se andadi sulle barche?+
vergogna....
e invece nella querelle (?) 30 aprile- 1 maggio vince i sloveni che fa festa anche el 2.
mz
Sull'Olanda e il libertinismo. Innanzi tutto bisogna notare questo: ogni nazione è un po' vittima dei propri stereotipi. Pensando all'olanda si pensa al libertinismo, festa, droga libera, sesso e pazzie.. Gli olandesi se ne rendono conto? Cosa fanno per impedirlo? Beh, loro (come tutte le altre nazioni, germania, francia, inghilterra, stati uniti) pensando all'Italia pensano alla Mafia, alla pizza, al mandolino, pensano che gli italiani siano tutti caciaroni che cercando di venderti di tutto, che cercano di imbrogliare lo stato, di andare contro le regole, siano dei delinquenti col sorriso e che fanno sempre un po' i pagliacci. Questo è lo stereotipo dell'Italia. E gli italiani che lavorano cosa fanno per cambiarlo? Se ne rendono conto? Nei giornali francesi e olandese si parla sempre dell'ultima battuta di Berlusconi, dell'ultima gaffe maschilista che ha fatto, oppure l'ultimo scandalo calcistico... Ovviamente questi stereotipi hanno un fondo di verità, come ce l'hanno in Italia, così ce l'hanno anche in Olanda. Ci sono i lati positivi e quelli negativi. Di certo, come dice Ermes, qui funziona così perché c'è molta ricchezza e il paese è piccolo e facilmente controllabile dallo stato. Ma per gli olandesi questa società funziona, per cui tendono tutti, sia i governi di destra che quelli di sinistra, a rimanere più o meno sullo stesso binario della libertà di espressione e dello stato sociale forte... non dico sia un sistema migliore o peggiore, però è così e credo che gli olandesi ci ridano sopra agli articoli che li prendono in giro, e sopportino con una mano sul portafoglio tutti i turisti che vengono a fumare eccetera....
nella querelle: come gia` ho ricordato i cinesi fanno festa una settimana
maledetto italiano
..classica foto da italiano medio in vacanza all'estero..
niente vacanza, qui si lavora
e si guadagna il pane col sudore della fronte (e fin li`...)
The 1st of May is over (and I came to work in the afternoon even though in Germany it is actually holiday... :| ) so I'll make a more general and fundamental comment:
hey guys, love your t-shirts! They're great!!!
See you soon...? Do you come to visit...?
Yes, actually is possible... in may we go back in Italy, but I have to convince ermes to make a stop somewhere in Germany...
(tnks for the t-shirts!)
Dai dai dai, venite!!!
...Ermes, ti ho convinto? :D
mmm....
o...k....
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