Koninginnedag!

Queen's Day today in the Netherlands, a truly excellent national holiday involving beer, block parties, funny hats and free-market capitalism. And no you don't need to be a queen or even Dutch to join...although it helps. My favorite queen story: Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, a young Wilhelmina visited the powerful Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany who boasted to the Queen of a tiny country that "my guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder high to them." Wilhelmina smiled politely and replied: "Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!"

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