The three princesses are together in the Netherlands for King's Day in Emmen. Ariane (17) comes from Italy, where she wants to obtain an international baccalaureate. Alexia (18), halfway through a gap year of working and traveling. Amalia (20), who it became known last week that she had been living in Madrid for months, was in danger of being kidnapped in the Netherlands.
Towards the end of the visit to Emmen, she told the NOS: “I was able to find my freedom there a little more than was possible here.”
She has already shaken hundreds of hands and, if possible, been in even more selfies. Accidentally 'blasted' with orange confetti, Alexia untangles her hair. Behind the 1,600 crowd barriers, her name and that of her mother are shouted alternately.
King's Day has not been possible without crowd barriers for years, nor without security. Now the “threat level was so high”, Mayor Eric van Oosterhout said during a council meeting earlier this year, that increased security costs partly caused the celebration to cost the municipality of Emmen 2.3 million euros.
Cargo bike with gifts
Not a drawing, not a bouquet of flowers, not a box of chocolate goes into the cargo bike without security guards looking at them. The back of a small painting by Amalia in a portrait frame is briefly loosened. A mosaic thoroughly studied. Opened a homemade bag.
The cargo bike, with scout Willem Longbottom (18) behind the wheel, concludes the procession with the royal family in Emmen. Everything that is presented to the king, his wife, daughters, brother or cousins and his wives on such a King's Day is taken and, in the case of crafts, kept in the royal archives for at least five years.
The family's popularity figures are stabilizing, according to the annual King's Day poll by the NOS and Ipsos I&O on Saturday morning. Willem-Alexander received a 6.6 from those surveyed.
Along the route in Emmen, not a word of discontent is heard about the royal family – except for one block of republican demonstrators. They shout slogans such as “Stop the monarchy” and “Stop the multi-million subsidy”. The Republic organization wants, among other things, that the king is paid according to the Balkenende standard (this year a maximum of 233,000 euros), not, as is currently the case, a benefit according to a system determined by parliament, which gives him 1.1 million euros.
The king waves in their direction. Alexia walks briskly, looking to infinity. Amalia, Ariane and Máxima shake as many hands as possible on the other side. The people behind the fences try to drown out the demonstrators. “Orange top,” someone sings, and the rest join in.
Elsewhere along the route, the audience occasionally hears a 'hurray'. There people mainly shout for a selfie or a handshake, the people here try to drown out the demonstrators. As soon as the family members have walked past, you see a smile on their faces. Cell phones are being viewed, were the selfies successful?
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Touchability
Because that is what King's Day is, just like in previous years, above all: an opportunity to see the king, queen and princesses in real life now that they are in the area, to touch them, and to record that. The last visit by the entire family – then still on Queen's Day – was in 2002, but there have been regional visits by Willem-Alexander and Máxima to various villages.
Emmen mainly wanted to present itself to the rest of the Netherlands, via the two-hour live broadcast of the NOS. Time and again the city ended up at the bottom of the Atlas for municipalities as 'least attractive municipality'. In the municipal meeting about the costs for this day (2.3 million euros), almost all parties justified this as a “fantastic promotion”.
The king delivers what Emmen hopes for. In conversation with RTV Drenthe, Willem-Alexander says: “I don't think those lists are correct at all.” He repeats this on a full Raadhuisplein. He says: “Emmen is where you want to live.” The square cheers.
What he and his family saw in dance, sports and living statues was invented by the people of Emmen. The palace does impose the condition that it must be dignified. So no toilet bowl throwing like in Rhenen in 2012, or cookie eating.
Shuffleboard
But this time shuffleboard. World champion Elly Mensen comes from the area, from Klazienaveen. Shuffleboard is, she says a day earlier, “certainly not a house-and-garden game.” She explains about 'passing edges' and 'dragging edges'. “There is technology involved. And rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.”
When Willem-Alexander arrives at her box, he immediately grabs a stack of checkers. And another, and another. He is not distracted by the cacophony around him. “You've been practicing,” Alexia tells him. The whole family is fanatical when it comes to sports and games, including the quiz with questions about, for example, the weight of a dolmen and the number of sheep in a sheepfold. The king estimated incorrectly, even though he did not perform the opening for several years.
The most substantive part of the visit is the garden of recycled plastic flowers, a waterfall of plastic bottles and synthetic grass. Birdsong sounds from a speaker. Each flower took a few hours to print on a 3D printer, says Vincent Voet, lecturer in sustainable plastics.
There is a label on a daffodil: “Maybe I used to be a sports shirt.” “Textiles are one of the largest sources of microplastics,” says Gerard Nijhoving, who made the artificial grass. Both want to show how you can think about waste as a raw material in a “positive way”.
The princesses each receive a bunch of plastic tulips. They also go with the cargo bike.
With the collaboration of Majda Ouhajji
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