Queen’s Day is….

Selling stuff

Crowds

Children earning money, creatively

Crowds

Outdoor Bars

Crowds (not helped by some muffin-brain trying to drive his car over this bridge)

Gezelligheid!

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Queen’s Night

Queen’s day is all about wearing orange and the vrijemarkt.

Koninginnenacht (Queen’s night) is all about wearing orange and parties. In my 5 straatjes there are about dozen outdoor parties, and the bars are all getting set up ready for tonight.
The city is really crowded, with lots of people here specifically for Queen’s day celebrations, [...]

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Queen’s Day Countdown.

Everyone, including us, has marked out their space for the vrijemarkt on Monday. Some people put discrete and neat signs in their windows, but mostly people mark the ground with their names or the word “Bezet” (occupied). It’s common to use masking tape, which no-one removes and so the remnants are on the ground for [...]

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Geert Wilders Gets a Wake-Up Call

MP Geert Wilders had a 3 hour “tutorial” with the National Coordinator for Anti-terrorism Tjibbe Joustra. He was shown documentary evidence of the reaction his comments have caused in Arab nations.
Mr. Wilders famously said that “Muslims should tear out and discard half the Koran if they want to live in the Netherlands”, and this was [...]

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Corporate Blogging

Dilbert has a comment to make about corporate blogging.
There are a lot of companies out there trying to figure out how to make money from the blogging concept, or social media, or “Web 2.0″ for managers who’ve picked up the jargon. Few are doing it successfully, and the fatal flaw is often the choice of [...]

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The World’s Biggest Flea Market

 We’re on the countdown to Queen’s Day on Monday (Koninginnedag, in Dutch), the city council has published a map of the city with information for the day.
Queen’s Day commemorates the birthday of Queen Juliana, when her daughter Beatrix became queen she didn’t change it to her own birthday – thank goodness otherwise we’d be doing [...]

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Immigrant Amnesty

There are around 26,000 immigrants in the Netherlands who arrived under the old alien act, who were destined for deportation under the former government.
Many of these migrants had been in the Netherlands for years, spoke Dutch, had Dutch partners and children, and very often had jobs or businesses here. I know TV shows the most [...]

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Toy Story

 There’s a market on the Noordermarkt every Saturday selling organic produce, this morning I picked up a collection of herbs, fresh parsley, peppery rucola and fragrant basil.
I walked back through the market, taking short-cuts between the stalls. There was a group of Americans admiring bright bags made from pre-used ties. The locals are checking out [...]

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Blue Blue Sky

The sky above Noorderkerk yesterday morning, laced with jetstreams. I was running late, and glanced up to check the time on the church clock to see this sky.

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Smoking Ban Test Case

An employee of the Holland Casino in Groningen may be a test case of the hole in the current smoking ban legislation.
The current legislation is based on a similar case from a worker in a post sorting centre 7 years ago. It guarantees all workers a smoke-free work place, but exempts the catering and entertainment [...]

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