Prinsjesdag

Last Tuesday was prinsjesdag (or prince’s day) as every third Tuesday of September. That is when the queen gives her speech from the throne in The Hague, addressing the parliament on the main government policies for the next year. It’s also the day that the minister of finance presents the budget.
Since this is in The Hague, and there are so many people around, everyone usually gets the day off. It is still a big mystery why we didn’t, especially since our school building was right on the route that the queen was going to take in her golden carriage. As you can imagine, everyone wants to see the queen, so we could not reach our college building. 

Luckily, we had class at one o’clock, right at the time the carriage was going to pass. After a failed attempt to cross the road before they came by, we decided to just watch and try again afterwards. I put my bag on a bench and climbed on an electricity house next to it to get a better view and take some pictures. When the fuss was over, we tried to get through again but didn’t succeed. Suddenly, I noticed that I didn’t have my bag with me. I asked Dylan, but he didn’t have it either, so he ran back as soon as he could to look for it. When he asked, some old ladies pointed to a police officer who was about to bike away, but luckily he gave Dylan my bag and I was so relieved! That must have been one of the most stressful moments of my life. 

We were told that the roads were not going to open before the queen had come back again, so we decided to bike all the way around and try to get to class before it ended, to show that we at least tried. (We were with a group of about seven people by that time.) We found the back entrance of the college building and ran upstairs, where we arrived in class fifteen minutes before it ended. Our teacher looked rather surprised that we all rushed in. I don’t think we were marked absent so that’s really nice of her. After that, we biked to the city centre to get Dylan a new backpack, because his other one had fallen apart.
There is also a fair/carnival with rides and food on the big field near Central Station, so we’re going to go there on its last day tomorrow and watch some fireworks!