Happy birthday to the Queen of the Netherlands. Even though the parties were yesterday, April 30 is the official birthday of the queen. It is really the birthday of the prior queen. But her daughter Beatrice, the present queen decided to keep the celebration date as April 30 to honor her mother and since her own birthday is at the end of January, it is too cold for a party then. In addition, as it is usually a big drunken party, they had it on Saturday instead of Sunday for religious reasons. Everyone wears orange as the original king of Holland was Willem of Orange. Thank you very much to Henk and Truus De, our Netherland friends who were our hosts for several days.