* He will never get over the loss of his brother. The interviewer stated it well that you can read Willem-Alexander's emotions from his face. The sadness when talking about the accident, coma and death of Friso was visibly.
* After the tragedy with flight MH17 he was told by the relatives of those who died that they felt he could understand what they were going through because he himself had lost his brother in an accident. He also talked about how he felt separated from those relatives during the first arrival ceremony of the remains. He described feeling odd about being put a distance away with officials while he could see and hear the raw emotions of the people he had met and tried to comfort just days before. That is why he and his wife made a nod/bow towards the relatives.
Puberty:
* he found it difficult to rebel as a teenager because his father was ill and his mother was very busy with her new job and everything going on.
* when the family moved from castle Drakensteyn in Lage Vuursche to Huis ten Bosch in The Hague he was ridiculed at school for his provincial accent. He watched a satirical show on tv in the local dialect to quickly pick it up and stop the bullying.
He refused to play out sketches from the show stating that at 50 he no longer needed it to stop being ridiculed. But did describe a moment while passing the houseboat where an old classmate lived with his family and shouting the starting lines of one scene and hearing the friend finishing the line without seeing each other and than both laughing out lout. His daughters had no clue what he was talking about so he ended up buying the entire show but after rematching it found some of the content too adult for his daughters so they have to wait a few more years to be allowed to watch it.
Princesses:
*The girls do not own a mobile phone. From the age of 10 (when their friends start to cycle to school, something the princesses don't) the girls get to loan one of the parents old mobiles. So Ariane just got her first loaned mobile a few weeks ago. The phones go off at home and during holidays. The king was honest enough to state that this was the basic theory but that in real life things did not always go that way.
*He has explained to the girls that they will meet people who cannot deal/handle the special position they have due to being born in the family. He has tried to teach them it's not their fault if people react foolishly because of it. He also told them not to try and reason or explain.
* The security people who look after the princesses are there to keep the girls safe not the tell their parents whatever the girls have done. So even when Amalia or one of her sisters does something the King and Queen would frown upon or disapprove of the agents are instructed not to reveal this to the parents. The King stated that holding public office requires knowing yourself well and being comfortable in your skin. That can only be achieved if you're allowed to find your own boundaries and occasionally go beyond them. He also stated that his girls grow up in a time where there is much more media attention (more photographers and camera crews) than in his youth and that mobile phones with camera's also make things more difficult for the younger generation.
Homes:
* he explained that the ground floor of villa Eikenhorst has official reception rooms and the family has a private apartment on the floors above. The interviewer asked why they had not changed things around and chosen to live on the ground floor so they could open the doors and walk into the gardens. The king responded that he agreed and that when they move to Huis ten Bosch the living quarters will be on the ground floor. This is a change from tradition as the ground floor of Huis ten Bosch is lower than the first floor and was used to house the rooms of the three princes and their caretaker so im curious how much of the lay out of the palace is going to change.
* Huis ten Bosch will be ready at the end of 2018 or the start of 2019.
IOC:
* His father was so saddened by the inability of his native Germany to keep the Israeli team safe in 1972 that he never wanted anything to do with the Olympic Games.
*When Willem-Alexander was asked if he wanted to join the IOC he told he would need to discuss it with his parents. He expected them not to allow it but to his surprise his father told him to accept and saw the opportunities it would give his son. Prince Claus as a German native always felt burdened by WWII but did not want his sons to feel that way.
--Previous Message--
: The King shares many of his personal views,
: including his youth at Castle Drakensteyn,
: the loss of his younger brother Friso and
: also the national grief after the MH17
: planecrash and the great loss of lives .
:
: More here, in Dutch:
:
: http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/koning-vertelt-in-nieuw-interview-over-verlies-friso-en-mh17~afaa7d2c/
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:
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