Tonight is the night before King’s day or as we say here ‘Koning’s Dag now.. it has heretofore been known as Koninginnedag… Queen’s day. It is a statutory holiday off course!!!!!

This evening Queen Beatrix said goodbye to her people. I have just listened to her speech… While I still struggled to understand everything in her quite complicated address, I did get a sense that she is remarkably grateful to her people for the 33 years of loyalty they have given her. She is convinced that her son is ready to take on this important duty and that his wife Maxima will be for her son, what her husband Claus was to her.

Queen Beatrix and her family have a special relationship to Canada, as she and her sister Irene, remained in Ottawa at the Stornaway residence with their mother Juliana during the 2nd world war.
All week long I have watched documentaries on the royal family. The dutch love their queen..they feel as if she is the mother of their land. She really does come across as a loving mother. She SMILES constantly..quite a different feel to watching Queen Elizabeth . She is very personable and informal..you actually see pictures of her being kissed by an ordinary subject and she simply smiles and takes it on. She is very fond and easy going with children. She is always well coiffed and well dressed. She is warm and informal.. one sees many pictures of her hugging people whether her family, children and regular folk.

Her son William … W for Willem is on everyone’s lips and W banners all over the city.

The city is full of these huge banners and the dutch red white and blue flags have popped up everywhere..
I don’t think I have ever seen as many Canadian flags in the whole of the city of Toronto as I saw dutch flags on one 10 block street last night. And of course ORANGE is everywhere.. tonight already people are off partying and dressed in orange.. I have yet to get a orange shirt..but everyone tells me this will be no problem as the sellers will be everywhere tomorrow!!!! and of course it is not just tShirts..no orange pants, orange hair, orange crowns.. you name it they have it.. I will be sure to take lots of pictures tomorrow.

This morning it was raining but the rain has gone and we are expecting a sunny day..perhaps 15 degrees …so just fine!!!
Tomorrow at 10 Willem will be crowned the King of the Netherlands. Tonight they are having dinner with their guests, right next door to me at the Rijksmuseum.. you can see the sun going down behind the museum as I took this picture from my third floor living room window..their they sit tonight with royalty from all over the world.

And here a picture of the Queen, Willem and Maxima arriving at the Rijksmuseum for the dinner.

For those of you interested.. Maxima is quite fashionable.. I heard one fashion guru say tonight she is the cocktail to Willem the regular andwich… .. such a dutch analogy … they love their bread by the way!!!!So again for the fashionistas Maxima is wearing a red ruffle dress by Valentino.. Very dutch, she has worn this dress before. Last week in an tv interview with Willem and Maxima, they asked her what she would wear and she said..oh she would find something in her closet… therefore I was of course curious to see if this is what she would do..and she did.

An interesting fact, kings and queens are not invited to this event.. no for a crowning only the princess and princesses are invited.. kings and queens may overshadow the new king..so protocol has it that only those who stand in line to be kings and queens are in attendance. Prince Philipp has arrived with Camille. An interesting point of fact…this is the second time he will attend a crowning in Holland. He also attended Beatrix’s crowning 33 years ago.. I wonder what thoughts are going through his head tonight. Prince Felipe and princess Letizia of Spain are here and Danish crown prince Frederik and his wife Princess Mary. Many of them are actually friends of Willem and Maxima.

Well I am now opening a bottle of wine..time to toast the queen, her son and Maxima.. interestingly people are already filing the Dam..for tomorrows celebration.. I will not be sleeping under the stars.. I will sit here and watch across the road and listen to hear when I can glimpse their limos taking them home for the evening.
Tomorrow will be a big day..will report in a few days..feel so lucky to be experiencing this amazing day with my dutch people .

Rotterdam—weekend 2: A Trip into the Past

Early in the morning boarded a train to Rotterdam.. about a 55 minute ride.
Bjorn Boek, one of the global HR team members I work with and who works here with me in Amstelveen had invited me for the weekend to Rotterdam where he lives. He was an amazing tour guide!!!!

Rotterdam is the second largest city in Holland and one of the largest ports in the world. It is now second only Shangai, which surpassed it in2004.
Rotterdam too has its roots long ago.. 1270 and like Amsterdam started as a dam on the Rotte River.. it is strategically located as it is at the heart of a massive rail, road, air and inland waterway distribution system…so it’s known as the ‘Gateway to Europe’
So it seemed only right that the first stop was the old harbor…beautiful as you can see from the following pictures.

Again you can see it was a great clear sunny crisp day.
We even found an original windmill in the old harbor.

..it is still a working mill processing grain for a boutique store in the windmill that sells unique grains. It was a very windy day and the windmill was in operation. As we could climb all the way to the top I got a bird’s eye view of the strength of the windmills sails. The miller was in residence and we saw how he adjusted the sailclothes, taking in part of the cloth to reduce the speed at which the windmill was circling. Good thing, I thought the windmill was going to take off or shake loose while we were there.. windpower is incredibly powerful.

Only a small portion of the original old harbor is left today. This mirrors the res of the city. In the second world war Hitler bombed Rotterdam and destroyed the heart of the city. 80,000 people were left homeless. The city hall pictured here was one of the few buildings that survived. Devastating to the people of Rotterdam, the people of Holland gradually rebuilt their city from the 1950s through the 1970s. Interestingly, my father’s construction firm was one of those given the opportunity to rebuild some of the housing communities. The city has an active architectural policy. Daring and new styles of apartments, office buildings , bridges resulted in a very architecturally interesting city. It is very apparent how young the city is.. the old style buildings are very few, interesting modern day architecture meets your eye in most cases..quite different as a result from the feeling of Amsterdam.

Bjorn planned a day that had us see the city from land and water. We traveled in a high speed water taxi through the harbor to the New York restaurant.. this restaurant is located in the old Holland America Line building. It is from this building that I would have left Holland as a child to immigrate to America. In the harbor is also the original Rotterdam. As part of our family memorabilia we have menu cards from this ship ..i had thought that we had crossed on this liner.. but it actually was not commissioned until a few years after we immigrated..so it turns out my uncle sailed on this luxury liner and we had traveled on the Amsterdam. Immigrants didn’t typically sail to New York on a luxury liner, they crossed in immigrant boats and arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax.

Interestingly my family the recipients of an ‘upgrade’, were bumped up to the luxury liner and we crossed in style sailing into New York harbor an early morning in May in the late 50’s . My earliest memories are from that crossing. So of course I wanted to tour the Rotterdam. In a theatre on the boat( very similar to the theatre I had seen my first ever movie …a Peter Gunn flick …the sound still plays in my mind) I saw a short film of the Rotterdam’s first crossing. It all looked so familiar the clothes of the late fifties, the ‘afschijd nehming’ (saying goodbye to family you thought never to see again —remember this is long before the air travel for the average man or woman), the amazing luxury life on board and the emotional entry into New York harbor sailing to the Statue of Liberty . All of this depicted in the short film.. I was quite overwhelmed by all the memories that flooded back. The ship was available to explore and with audio tour in hand we spent a good hour or more exploring the boat and seeing this week of my childhood that was so extraordinary through my adult eyes.. it was still remarkable!!!!!

What a day of new adventures and stirring old memories!!!!