Queen's Day

Saturday was Konninginnedag. That mouthful of a word means Queen's Day: theoretically, this holiday is a celebration of the Dutch Monarchy, the house of Orange. While the Queen does visit two different towns each year, in most places, Queen's Day is a combination outdoor flea market and party. It really starts the evening before, as people stake out sidewalk and street space in the center of towns all over the country. By 6pm, the designated areas of town are packed with sellers of junk of all sorts and Dutchies in search of a bargain. While in recent years commercial marketers have become more common, the old-school sellers are just residents cleaning out their accumulated stuff. Usually, even private "stuff" sales are taxed here, but on Queen's Day it's a Vrij Markt, or free market - no taxes necessary. Consequently, most Dutchies get their garage sale fix this one day of the year.

The domestic area of the market starts at the end of our street, about 3 buildings away. The sales drop off when it gets dark and then the street party takes over. In addition to the selling, plenty of stages are set up in front of business and houses featuring actual bands, karaoke, recorded music and lip synchers. Other people drag out couches and coolers and have private parties on the sidewalks in front of their houses. There are beer and food sales but people seem to be pretty well behaved, as a rule. Friday night's party went on until about 1:30, and the only problem I noted was the humungous mess people left behind. They set up porta-potties, barricades and signs directing people around but they really out to set up more garbage cans: these partiers are not neat people.

Anyways, we wandered around for a few hours on each of Friday night and Saturday afternoon and picked up the following items:
-blue juice jug
-purple sweater for me
-coffee maker pot (and likely broken maker) - we broke the one downstairs.
-impossible 1000 piece forest puzzle, still in the plastic
-250 Magic the Gathering cards (for Rem)
-necktie
-Janet Evanovich book #1

All this for the bargain total of about 11 euros. Pretty good, eh? Last year we bought a lot more stuff - glasses and tables and chairs and whatnot, but we're pretty well stocked for household stuff this year and mostly trying to not buy things we can't take home.

Anyways, I took a bunch of pictures of the event and if I get my butt in gear and arrange them, I'll post them on Rem's site someday.