h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the most odd thing in Holland must be Queen's Holiday.
On this day when you turn on your television-set you see a lot of people, a lot of orange, a lot of people dressed in orange, and an old lady with a large hat; presumably the queen. Nobody ever asked her if she was, but she's hás the biggest hat, so it must be her.
The queen has three sons and the oldest gets to be king after his mother kicks the bucket. It is unknown wether he has to wear the same hat his mother wears, or gets to wear a crown, which is more fashionable for a king in most other countries.

On queen's holiday everybody gets to throw all their junk and other old stuff from their attics on to the street. If someone else wants to pick it up and take the stuff with him, he has to pay for it. It's called the free-market (vrij-markt).
Some people will try to make music, and other people will pay them to stop. This ussually doesn't work, because they only get encouraged to make even more noise, so other people will also try to bribe them to stop.

There's one more thing you need know about "queen's holiday" to be able to avoid it: it takes place every 30 april, so when you're in the neighbourhood on that day, I suggest you grab a beer in cafe "het elfde gebod" (the 11th commandment?) in Antwerp, Belgium, which happens to be just around the corner.

Queen's day? It's a bit hazy in my memory, but I've been told I had fun.

'Het elfde gebod' is probably the best beer in existance. Especially consumed in the similarly named pub in
Antwerp. Go there any day but Queen's Day, because that is the most hilarious day to spend in Holland.

well, I think everybody agrees, queen's day is having fun.
New must be that it is originally created to celibrate the birthaday of the queen. And now it becomes rather wierd, 'cause you then expect queensday to be at the birthday of the queen, but it is not. Our queen is born in february, but since it is probably raining on her real birthday some people (that is where the government is for) decided to happen in spring

-W