New Year 's Eve

1. New Year's Eveis on December 31, the final day of the Gregorian year, and the day before New Year's Day. New Year's Eve is a separate observance from the observance of New Year's Day. In modern Western practice, New Year's Eve is celebrated with parties and social gatherings spanning the transition of the year at midnight. Many cultures use fireworks and other forms of noise making in part of the celebration. Symbols The most common New Year's Day symbol in the Netherlands are the fireworks that are traditionally set off at midnight between December 31 and January 1. In large towns and cities, fireworks are set off continuously for one to two hours. This results in a smog that can take many hours to clear and leaves a layer of red paper snippets and other debris on the streets. Public life In the Netherlands, public life is very quiet on January 1. Post offices, banks, most stores and other businesses are closed and only a few people work on this day. Public transport services run on reduced timetables or do not run at all. Very little congestion is expected on the roads. New Year's Eve

2. Queen's Day is a national holiday in the Netherlands, on 30 April or on 29 April if the 30th is a Sunday. Queen's Day celebrates the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. Queen's Day is known for its "freemarket“: all over the country, where everybody is allowed to sell things in the streets. Other activities during Queen's Day are children's games, individual musical performances, and music concerts. The present-day celebration of Queen's Day was originally intended by the Liberal Union to be a day of national unity in the Netherlands. It started with the celebration of the birthday of Princess Wilhelmina on 31 August1885. From 1885 to 1890 the celebration was therefore called Prinsessedag or Princess' Day, until the Coronation of Wilhelmina in 1890. Since 31 August1891 the celebration was called Koninginnedag or Queen's Day. The day was not only the birthday of the Queen, but also the last day of the summer vacation, which made the celebrations popular with children. Unlike her successors, Queen Wilhelmina almost never attended festivities on Queen's Day. In recent years, Koninginnedag has become more and more of an open-air party, with many concerts and special events in public spaces, particularly in Amsterdam, which attracts anywhere from 500,000 to 800,000 visitors. Many Dutch people living abroad try to make the pilgrimage home (with many 'clued-up' tourists) to experience this holiday each year. Booking accommodations in Amsterdam and elsewhere for Queen's Day is notoriously difficult, requiring booking 6 months or more ahead. During the preceding 'koninginnenacht' many bars and clubs throughout the Netherlands hold special events catering to revelers that last all night long. This tradition started in the early nineties when pre-Koninginnedag riots were an increasing problem in The Hague. Queen’s day