Queen's Day

1. Starting early

2. Eva in Orange

3. Jan (one of the boats co-owners) and Cynthia

4. That was an "empty" canal.

5. I didn't have the heart to tell the guy that the Statue of Liberty is NOT in California.

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I just got back from Amsterdam where I celebrated the annual Queen's Day. Every April 3oth the Amsterdamers take to the streets and the canals to celebrate the birthday of their Queen's mother. They would celebrate their Queen's Birthday, but that's in January. The weather should be good for such a celebration and in Holland the odds are higher that it will be better in April. So that's when the celebrate.

My friend Cynthia (from my UCLA days) has lived there for 10 years and owns a boat. Eva and I were glad to get a coveted spot on it and had a great day. All the while that we were cruising around the canals we were looked at longingly by people on the sides that wished they were on a booat. There was drinking, food and general revelry all day. The canals were packed sometimes wall to wall with boats and orange clad (the national color) partiers. Sometimes when people (guys) had to pee they would run across several boats to get to the side and use one of the temporary urinals around town. Then they would run back across random boats to get to their own. Often we had to have one hand for drinking and one hand ready to "repel borders" from the hordes of other boats around us.

We were on the boat from about 11 am to 7pm and were so tired afterwards but it was a wonderful day. It wasn't the warmest day ever but all in all the weather treated us OK. We are back home tonight, but off to Paris for a night tomorrow.