Day 17

Queen's Day
I woke up early and before my roomie J.Lo. I prepare my orange clothes and orange make up.

We meet at the center of Hoofdorp. There aren't many people yet and we see that some of the people were not even wearing orange. With my orange hat, orange cardigan, shirt and skirt and my orange ribbon tied on my hair, I feel so overdressed.

A funny sexy dress I only wear for the photo

I am so relieve that my co-delegates are also wearing orange. We look like three pairs of twins. J.Lo and I with our matching skirts, Martin and Sean with their matching shirts and sunglasses and Dan and Jedde with matching leis.

The flea market where people sell the old stuff they don't need to people who need them.

I buy an old Polaroid camera. I can't find the film for it, though.

After roaming around Hoofdorp, I only buy the camera and shoes for my cousin at C&A. After lunch with rice which we shared with each other, we go to the station to ride a bus to Haarlem.

Jump shots while waiting for the bus

We are only given little time to spend around Haarlem and since it's crowded, Louise and Robin, our Dutch youth counterparts wrote their numbers on our wrists.

Luc wearing a silly pair of sunglasses.

We walk around Haarlem, but it's really difficult to go through the crowd. Everyone is in party mood and it reminds me of Sinulog, only everyone is wearing orange. Aside from stalls of second hand stuffs, there are beer stations everywhere and band/singers performing.

We drop by a Protestant church turned beer brewery for drinks. The Dutch laugh when we order milk. Haha.

Bottom's up! I'm not sure if Julla is a beer drinker or she just want to try how beer tastes like in Netherlands.

The large crowd of people gathers to PARTY!

I have not accomplished much of things in Haarlem because of the crowd. I didn't find any good buys. Danica, however, found a good buy. A second hand iPod nano for only 15 euros! It's not sold with the charger/usb and headset, but it's still a very good buy. And yep, it works!

Sean falls asleep on the bus going home.

After Queen's day, the Kols, my host family and the de Blocks gather at the Van Der Tol's residence for a barbecue party. We have grilled bacon, chicken, sausages and meat balls/bola-bola. (Urgh, writing about the food makes me hungry.) We set the dinner outside, but it turns out becoming very cold despite the sunniness in the morning.

Lekker! Lekker!

The wind blows and it's really chilly!

After dinner, the youngsters gather in the living room and we play the famous Pinoy Henyo of Eat Bulaga. The mechanics of the game is to guess the word that is written above you on your forehead by asking yes or no questions.

Sanne is not able to guess the word bacon, too. She knows that the word's a food and when she asks if it's yummy, we say yes. As a vegetarian, bacon is probably not on the list of yummy foods.

Dan's word is Char. He uses the Cebuano expression often, but he isn't able to get it.

We probably return home at 10pm. J.Lo and I still have to pack our things. The day after this Orange festival, we are changing hosts and also partners. Aside from missing the Kols, I will also miss my soul sister J.Lo, whom I've regarded as my own sister. I will miss our time together talking girl stuffs until 1 in the morning or until one of us dozes off.