Hiep hiep hoera!
Holland celebrates the birthday of the queen on the 30th of April. It’s actually the queen’s mother’s birthday, but as the current queen was born in January, chances are the weather is more appropriate on this spring day than it is in January.
To celebrate, Tuskers, the venue of our weekly quiz night, threw a Koninginnedag (queen’s day) party, which included oliebollen, spijkerpoepen, Berenburg and more. Those in orange could expect a special treat, so I went all out and, besides wearing an orange shirt, found my colleague Niamh (that is, /niːəv/, or Nieve, gotta love Gaelic), willing enough to dye my hair orange.
Lots of Dutchies enjoyed the party, including a bunch of tourists who had done an online search for Koninginnedag Chiang Mai and the festivities were livened up with a plethora of Dutch music, including lots of Doe Maar.
The timing, celebrations on the 30th, was excellent as May 1 is still a holiday in Thailand. Yep, labour day.
The afterparty, the next day at Pascal’s, was nice and mellow, with for dinner an excellent Boeuf Bourguignon prepared by Pascal’s mom and from a recipe by Gerard Depardieu. Before the afterparty, though, I needed a disco nap to regain my composure.
A day later, friends of Steve’s, Rachel and Andrew, arrived for a visit from the UK. Andy looked and acted like a cross between John Simm and Simon Pegg.
On a side note, the assassination attempt on the Dutch queen made the front page of The Bangkok Post. Of the daily physical newspaper, that is.
And what’s going on with the half dozen ghost calls I get every day?