Leve de Koning!

It has been a very busy week on this side of the pond. Last week the new king rose to power, so of course the country was in complete celebration mode, and this past weekend I went to Paris! (Paris recap in a different post)

The celebrations surrounding the new king were far from scarce. Festivities started the night before (aka Queen's Night). I went down to The Hague with a few people and we wandered the city to see what was going on. There were concerts all over the place. There was also an area that was like a carnival, complete with fried food and over-priced rides. Not to mention plenty of people already donning their orange attire. It was definitely a party. I didn't stay too long though, because I knew I'd be getting up early the next morning to head to Dam Square to see the new king and queen presented on the balcony.

And that is just what I did. I was out the door at 7am, which is the earliest I've woken up since I've been here. We ended up getting to the square about 2 hours before the king was scheduled to make his first public appearance. But it didn't seem like that long of a wait, because it was fun to watch all the people and scope out who had the best orange get-up for the day. The crowd went insane when now-Princess Beatrix began her speech from inside the Palace with a large  chorus of "Bea Bedankt!" (translation: Thank you Bea!). That was just the beginning too. Once Beatrix, the new king, Willem-Alexander, and the new queen, Maxima, stepped out on the balcony, voices and cameras were raised. It was insane. I don't even know how I managed to get the pictures I did. I'm writing it off as good luck more than anything else.

After the royal family headed back inside, the square quickly emptied as people headed off to other festivities around the city. I ended up walking around Amsterdam and getting a good bit of free stuff. Eventually we headed down to Museumplein where there was a huge concert/festival going on. We watched some music performances and then the official church component of the day on giant TV screens. We got some poffertjes and fries to curb our hunger and round out the day.

It was definitely awesome to be a part of this. One for the record books!

Queen's Night

That's dedication right there

I was spotted...

Oranje Boven!