After returning back to the Hague after seeing family off from Schiphol, I couldn't take the tram back to my flat. I had forgotten, after being out of town for a few days, that the funeral for Princess Juliana was to be held today, and all of the trams I could possibly take had stopped running for the day. It was a rather long walk home, but an enjoyable one as spring seems to have made a (rare) appearance in Holland.
Princess Juliana (who retained the title of princess after ceding the queen's throne to her daughter) was a favorite of the Dutch, she was known to bicycle around the city, randomly dropping in at her subjects' houses for a cup of tea in the afternoon. A Dutch man told me that the population of the Netherlands would never admit their love of the monarchy, but in fact they're secretly adored. Today the adoration wasn't so secret, with throngs of people lining the streets between the Hague and Delft, where the ceremony was to take place. As luck would have it, this is exactly the route I take to get home.
What a rare sight to see real Dutch sailors rather than men who are just into uniforms from Reguliersdwarsstraat in Amsterdam. (This was also a common problem in San Francisco, to differentiate between real police officers and uniformed pedestrians coming home after sorting themselves out in the Castro). The tall military (and these are certainly tall people) marching to the pomp and ceremony, were self-conscious and seemed to be uncomfortable in their own skin, often smiling, occasionally tripping over themselves, and generally appearing unrehearsed and slightly silly. This is great, how wonderful, I thought to myself, an army that functions only as a museum set-piece on those days when a big dose of nostalgia is needed.