Koninginnedag (aka Queen's Day)

Orange bitter liquor...it's what's for breakfast

Clock him with an egg and win 20 euro

April 30th is the day when the Dutch (and the tourists that love them) manage to outdo the usual everyday bacchanalia that is Amsterdam. Ostensibly, it is the celebration of the Queen's birthday (although it is actually the birthday of her mother, since the current Queen pragmatically realized that changing the holiday to her actual birthday in December would probably put a damper any outdoor celebrations and had the good sense to leave well enough alone). So now as before, in springtime, everyone dresses up in orange (the royal family is known as the House of Orange), drinks orange liquor, walks arounds streets strewn in orange debris and in general sleeps off an orange hangover come May 1st. Or was that just me?

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A picture is worth a million....pictures (the tulip edition)

Once again, it looks like I will be spending most of my summer in the ultra-cool city of Amsterdam, only difference is that this year, I made it in time to see the much heralded tulips. They are gorgeous, they are amazingly colorful and they are simply everywhere. Yet even with this level of omnipresence, I have calculated that there has got to be a 5 tourists to 1 tulip ratio at play. Hotels are all booked solid, tour busses are clogging every street and may the gods help you if you decide to take a city bus to the Keukenhof, the world's most famous flower garden. It is tulip mania around here. I have posted a small percentage (seriously!!) of the photos I took at the flower parade and the garden itself to show why people from all over the world are flocking for flowers.

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Dammit!

Just as I was celebrating putting this Netherlands thing to rest, I realized that I had not posted nearly enough photos of Amsterdam itself. This had to be remedied.

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