today the weather was not too bad, finally! quite sunny and even warm enough to sit on the balcony in the early evening. the above picture however was taken on queens day (oh no, i mean kings day). its one of the few days dutch people wear orange. as i wrote before, orange is the national color since its the color of the dutch royal family (they are named "van oranje", meaning "from orange"). the other days you might people see wearing orange is when the dutch soccer team is playing in the world cup, and i guess thats about it. orange is not worn in everyday life. so in general, people do not possess orange clothing, aside from the one orange jersey you wear that one time a year. it really is considered weird to wear orange, and you wont see much (any?) orange clothing in the shops.
i never even wore orange on queens day, but that changed after 3 years in boston. there we dressed up in the american colors on the 4th of july to feel like real americans. so... it was just natural to finally do as almost all the other dutch do. it also helped that i bought a beautiful silk orange dress in boston, just a few weeks before we left (it was crazy cheap in a shop for vintage clothing. i still miss the cheap american shopping, and hardly shop nowadays.) when else to wear it but on kings day?!
