koniginnendag

[kobi]

dag
hoe gaat het me jouw aan de koniginnen dag?
wat maak je op deze dag?

[Alex]

Unfortunatley I missed Koniginnendag and Koningennacht as I was in England. It's always pretty messy, anyone got any good stories to tell?

And RIP those who died in Appeldoorn

[_gijs_]

Good stories? Where to start, where to start... Well to be honest, most people here are just in total shock about what happened in Apeldoorn. For those who don't know what Koninginnedag is and what happened, I'll update you on that =)

Koniginnedag (Queen's day) is a national holiday in the Netherlands. It's the birthday of our previous queen, Juliana, and is meant to promote national unity. Officially, we celebrate the queen's birthday, even though it's actually on her late mother's birthday. On Koniginnedag, the royal family usually visits two cities and walks around and stuff... This may sound pretty naive, but they just tend to mingle with the people, to a certain extent of course. They are entertained by just regular people with shows or folkloristic stuff or whatever. They basically just bond with the people =)

This Koninginnedag changed everything. Suddenly, a madman rammed through some road blocks and subsequently through the audience in an attempt to attack the royal family (this all at a speed of 100 km/hour or 60 miles/hour). The attack failed, as the car crashed into a monument, hereby just missing the open-topped bus with the royal family. People were literally flying through the air like ragdolls, live on national television and in front of the royal family. Seven people are reported dead (among them the attacker) and several people are severely wounded. The vicitims include children and (military) police men. Lots of festivities have been cancelled due to this attack. Koninginnedag will never be the same.

By the way, footage of the attack is available on the net, especially on some Dutch sites. I could provide some links if you are interested, but my first intuition was not to post them, as some footage is really shocking.

[MERRD]

Being in Paris caused me to miss Koninginnedag. I was invited to the house of the Dutch ambassador in Paris. More important is ofcourse the strength that I wish the family of the victims and everyone related

[Toddo]

Ja ik heb gehoord over die tragedie. Ik hoop dat die vent rotten in de gevangenis zit voor wat hij deed. Totally roekeloos.
Op een lichtere noot, hoe is de dag normaal gevierd?

[MERRD]

Verbaasd dat jij Nederlands kan. Die vent is helaas dood, dus die kan niet meer boeten voor wat hij gedaan heeft.
Verder is het allemaal een beetje rustiger geweest dan normaal. Veel feesten waren ingekort of afgelast, dus het is allemaal niet zo opgetogen geweest. Vrijmarkt (waar iedereen al z'n spullen mag verkopen, een van de belangrijkste dingen van die dag) ging wel overal door! Dus alle kinderen waren blij!

[Toddo]

Wow ik niet horen dat de bestuurder was overleden. Ik hoop dat het niet lang voordat vieringen terugkomen. Ik ben blij de kinderen hadden plezier op Vrijmarkt voorafgaand aan de tragedie.
Hehe ik kan niet spreken Nederlands. het is met behulp van Google Translate. Hoop dat het okay