Day Three: Friday, 30 April
Everybody was worn out by all of the walking we did at the Keukenhof on Thursday so we all slept in on Friday. The boys slept until almost 8:30.
Initially our plan for Friday was to go to the Dutch Railway Museum in Utrecht. Google Maps said the drive would take about an hour. On Thursday, we discovered that there was a problem with our plan -- the museum is closed on April 30th. Indeed, most things in the Netherlands are closed on April 30th. European vacationers take note -- when traveling to a foreign country, take the time to research public holidays in the country you will be visiting. As fate would have it, the Dutch celebrate April 30th as Koninginnedag (Queen's Day). This is the day that the Dutch celebrate the birthday of the queen. The current queen has her birthday on January 31st but her mother's birthday was April 30th. Rather than changing the holiday every time a change in leadership takes place, the Dutch have selected April 30th as the day to celebrate.
The Dutch flag is red, white, and blue but their national color is undoubtedly orange. And if there is ever a day to display your orange pride, April 30th is it. So why have the Dutch chosen orange as their color of choice? The short answer is that orange is the color of the Dutch royal family. The lineage of the current dynasty -- the House of Oranje-Nassau -- dates back to Willem van Oranje (William of Orange). Today the color orange has come to symbolize broader pride in the Netherlands and in being Dutch. We saw lots of Dutch flags draped with an extra orange banner.
When we were trying to figure out what we were going to do on Friday, we talked briefly about going into Amsterdam. The Eurocamp staff discouraged this idea with young children. They told us that there is traditionally lots of public drinking on Koninginnedag and so things can get pretty rowdy. Our travel book seemed to support this notion.
So we woke up on Friday not really knowing what we would do. The weather had turned noticeably colder overnight and a light rain had been falling since the previous evening. The Greens went into Haarlem to see some of the places where The Best Two Years was filmed but we didn't really want to do that so we were on our own. We knew were weren't going to sit in the trailer and watch the rain come down so we started looking for something to do. Fortunately, the campground had a free wireless hot spot by the main shopping area so that was a big help. We discovered that the M.C. Escher museum in Den Haag (The Hague) was going to be open so we made the twenty minute drive into the city. We even found a parking place right in front of the museum. Certainly this would not have been possible on a regular work day. A regular work day probably also would not found the streets littered with broken glass and various other leftovers from the previous evening's drunken party.
The museum was great. I loved seeing some of the lithographs and the museum had fun games for the boys too.
While we were inside the museum, the rain stopped and people started attending a traveling carnival that had been set up right across the street from the museum. We saw the carnival when we went into the museum but it didn't look like anybody was there. By the time we got out of the museum, the carnival had become busy and the boys were hungry. They were giving out foam crowns (orange, of course).
All of the European carnivals and festivals we have attended seem to sell the same overpriced bratwursts. This one did not disappoint.
As expected, the dutch were displaying all sorts of orange. We saw orange hair, orange shirts, orange hats, orange balloons, and more.
The Dutch version of a port-a-potty left a few things to be desired.
Questions that need to be asked: How do you wash your hands? What are the ladies supposed to do? Notwithstanding my curiosity, I was sure nobody would actually use this thing. Look at how nasty it is -- it even has three beer cups from last night's party sitting in the urinal. Of course, I was wrong. I didn't have to wait long for some random Dutchman to come along and use the facilities.
After an hour or so at the carnival, we headed back to the campgrounds so we could go to the amusement park again.
The boys wanted me to ride the Aqua Shute.
I did not disappoint.
Next we rode the monorail (self-service pedal around the lake on an elevated track). Afterward, my thighs were on fire. We saw a man coming off the ride who looked like he almost didn't make it all the way around.
Then the boys had great fun with some urinating baby.
Of course we rode some trains.
We all liked the amusement park -- even baby Sara.
When the amusement park closed, we headed back to the trailer for dinner. We got the boys in bed by 8PM and began the process of packing up the trailer. We were checking out the next morning and had to be out by 10AM. The drive back home would take us five or six hours but we were not planning on driving straight home. Instead, we had a couple of detours planned along the way. Check back next time for the exciting conclusion to our family's trip to the Netherlands...
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