I love my country, please buy my garbage.

April 30 is queen's day in the Netherlands. It started out as princess's day in 1885. One of the reasons is to celebrate the unity of The Dutch kingdom. It's one of those days we don't argue about ethnicity or religion. Black or white, atheist or muslim, we all celebrate queen's day.

Queen's day is a national holiday so if people are working that day they get 200% paid (kaching!). I've done that before. It's not worth the money. Everyone is having fun and you are working your buttocks off. Besides the queen and her familiy visiting two cities, parties and booz we have the 'vrijmarkt' (free market). It's like a nationwide flee market. You don't have to have a permit to sell on the street and you don't need to pay value added taxes (again, kaching).

This year I helped out bff RJ to move his stuff to the city centre. The day before he found a nice spot and wrote down occupied and his name. Later that day he used duct tape to mark the spot just in case the rain would wash away the chalk.

But the next day some hoochie mama stole the spot. She said she didn't see any markings. Ya right, liar liar, pants on fire. Oh well, some nice lady told bff RJ he could sit next to her so the selling could begin. I arrived a bit later cause the trolley I had was way to heavy for me.:( The day was quite relaxed, everyone was happy and our 'neighbours' were nice. I did some strolling but I didn't need anything. I did a lot of eating though. I've bought a lot of food and drinks and at the end of the day I've bought 5 boxes of strawberries for € 5,- (kaching). I think it's the same stall from last year's queen's day, where I bought 8 mangos for € 1,50.XD

5 p.m. is the official ending of the 'vrijmarkt'. Around 6 and 7 p.m. the city will start with cleaning the 'vrijmarkt' area.

Last year I was just strolling around the 'vrijmarkt' and at the end I hung out with bff W and we had a huge load of mango smoothies.:D

Last year bff W introduced me to skrepping, scraping or scrapping (? I don't know the actual name). Before the city starts with cleaning the 'vrijmarkt' you will see people walking around scavenging the stuff people at 'vrijmarkt' left behind to be removed by the city cleaners. I saw old ladies with a toy wagons to put their new found treasures in it. I mean, I've never seen this phenomenon. A whole new world opened up for me. Like that scene in Men in Black II when agent K regains memory and spots the aliens in New York City.

I didn't need anything so I searched around the garbage for usable stuff for bff W (I know I'm the best bff of the whole world ;)). Found a lot of flower pots, pasta in glass and a cake mold. I've got myself some books. I did read one. It wasn't really good but I didn't mind, it was for free!