Queens of The Netherlands

So I was reading up (on Wikipedia) on the Dutch queens. I knew about the whole Wilhemina-Juliana-Beatrix succession before and have felt some affection towards the royal family ever since my own attempts of speaking Dutch were met with "you have Princes Maxima's accent". Weird since she's from Argentina. I've never heard any of her speeches so I don't know how true that statement is.

Anyway, I was talking about the Queens. The current one is rather awesome, I think. And the Dutch seem to love her very much, even thugh they make fun of all her hats.

She was on state visit to Estonia... last week, I think. On which occasion there was this whole documentary on the national tv on the visit, complete with interviws with some of the less than 100 Dutchmen and -women living in Estonia.

I particularly like the tradition of abdication (it can be called that if it's been the only way of transferring the title in the past century, from Wilhemina to Juliana and then from Juliana to Beatrix, right? Is twice in a century enough to be considered a tradition?), whith Beatrix seems to want to continue, but not before "Willem-Alexander is out of diapers". Of his children. Which is a completely new way of looking at monarchy for me... can you imagine ruling a country and at the same time trying to take good parental care of your infants/toddlers/pre-schoolers? Especially considering that the royalty of the Netherlands has a much more active hand in actually ruling the country (particularly the foreign politics) than, say, the British royalty do.

hip hip hip hoera!