February 9, 2011
On Monday I saw this bicycle sticking out of a wall in the Westerpark neighbourhood of Amsterdam to indicate that the shop below sells and repairs bikes. Later that day I saw that another entrepreneur in De Pijp neighbourhood had come up with more or less the same idea, except in this case to confusingly signal the presence of a hotel.
Granted, it was a bicycle hotel.
Tags: Amsterdam, commerce, hotels, Pijp, shop signs, signs, Westerpark
January 29, 2011
Cycling videographer Mark Wagenbuur has released another doozy. His video shows traffic in early 20th century Amsterdam, with — you guessed it — a focus on bicycles.
I can’t help but notice that after a century:
What’s changed: there are no more horse, dog, or man-drawn carts for transport. Compare it to this vid which starts at the exact same spot on the Leidsestraat.
(Video: YouTube / Mark Wagenbuur)
Tags: Amsterdam, dogs, ferries, infrastructure, Mark Wagenbuur, roads
January 19, 2011
Amsterdam is the world’s most expensive city to park in, with a daily rate of 52 euro, followed by London at just 41 euro a day. True, this only applies to people parking on the street, as car owners in Amsterdam can get a relatively inexpensive parking permit for about 1 euro a day for the neighbourhood they live.
Sounds reasonable so far, but imagine forking out 100,000 euro to buy an indoor parking spot in the garage of your flat building and then having insane municipal bureaucrats ask you to cough up another 243 euro to get a permit to park in ‘your’ spot.
Luckily someone complained, and the Ombudsman of the city of Amsterdam stepped in and fixed this major cockup. The 15 flat owners were all sent a letter asking them to pay for a permit, but that shouldn’t have happened.
For anyone who thought Smart cars were silly, at least they can find a place to park, another major issue in Amsterdam.
Before the bike mafia starts in on the comments (we totally approve of biking and public transport, don’t get me wrong), allow me to remind you of all the foreigners and out of town visitors and workers who logically come here by car, the handicapped and the likes.
(Link: telegraaf)
December 31, 2010
I’d like to finish 2010 on a postive note literally and figuratively with some Dutch artists who caught my ear this year for all sorts of reasons.
Jungle by Night – E.T.. A young Amsterdam playing brassy Afrobeat music that are surely going to have a successful 2011.
AIFF – Life ft. Linda Bloemhard (of The Jazzinvaders). I always enjoy DJing AIFF, a Dordrecht-based Afrobeat group that rarely performs, here with Linda Bloemhard of Dutch jazz-funk band The Jazzinvaders. Please perform more in 2011!
The Madd – Je suis parti. A Rotterdam band that had decided to spilt up and do other things (I love their two French songs), 2011 will have new beginnings for them.
Caro Emerald – The Other Woman. Yes, she’s a commercial success, but rightly so. Caro does not tire and we all look forward to what 2011 will bring for her. There are rumours of her possibly singing in French, you heard it from me first. (The song kicks in at 0:35.)
Happy New Year!
Tags: AIFF, Amsterdam, Caro Emerald, Dordrecht, Jungle by Night, Rotterdam, The Madd
December 7, 2010
First you follow the link to the cute little Delft blue houses, and then you can click on any of the 91 bottles and find out what house it is and where. Most of them can be found in Amsterdam, but a few of them are from towns like Amersfoort, Delft, Breda and Schiedam.
I spontaneously clicked on number 81 and got ‘proeflokaal’ (roughly ‘tasting pub’) De Drie Fleschjes (The Three Bottles) in Amsterdam pictured above (here is what it looks like today). Ironically, it is a place to sample gin and have a drink.
What I thought was odd though is that there is the same house twice (11 and 23), another ‘proeflokaal’ in Amsterdam, Wijnand Fockink. I think the makers of the site made a mistake, as 90 is a much nicer number.
(Link and image: klom.com, via amsterdamadblog.com)
Tags: Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Breda, Delft, Delft bue, genever, KLM, Schiedam
November 21, 2010
The Schutzstaffel did in fact once have an office in the middle of Amsterdam, on the Dam square to be precise, and historian Jo Teeuwisse has created a great set of photo mash-ups that bring home how the world fitted back then.
Her ‘photoshops’ consist of modern photos overlayed with war-time pictures she found at a flea market. This works particularly well because from an architectural point of view the city of Amsterdam doesn’t seem to have changed much in the past 50 years, if Teeuwisse’s photos are anything to go by. And so you see tourists wandering around areas where once the cobblestones were red with blood, oblivious of that fact:
The final two pictures are of Dam square on Monday, 7 May 1945, two days after the German surrender. Thousands of Dutch people were waiting for the liberators to arrive in the square. They had lived through five years of war and months of fear and hunger. In the “Big” Club, members of the Kriegsmarine watched as the crowd below their balcony grew and grew, people danced and cheered.
Then, for some reason, the Germans placed a machine gun on the balcony and started shooting into the crowds. It has always remained uncertain why it happened but the tragic outcome was that, at the brink of peace, 120 people were badly injured and 22 people died.
See also:
Tags: Amsterdam, SS, World War II
November 20, 2010
Today, 20 November 2010, is the day that ‘The Netherlands screams for culture’ (Nederland schreeuwt om cultuur), a movement among the general population to campaign against the huge budget cuts in culture subsidies throughout the Netherlands.
Big whoop? Why can’t all those venues and orchestras make their own money and stop sponging off the government? As a North American used to ‘pulling yourself up by your bootstraps’ when it comes to culture, knowing that some venues (actual businesses) are subsidised up to 40% (!) is hard to fathom. And if you pull the plug on their grants, entire smaller cities will have no cultural institutions to speak of. But is that such a bad thing?
While there are all kinds of scandals involving cities pumping millions into local, bankrupt football clubs, the arts will not only suffer budget cuts, but the price of tickets for shows in 2011 will be taxed at the 19% VAT (valued added tax) instead of the current 6% rate. Theatre producers are going to the mat with the government, as the decision was made on a whim and will probably costs thousand of jobs. Interestingly enough, sports events will still be taxed at the 6% rate.
The idea behind this logic is politically motivated: One of the recently elected political parties pushing for this want to punish ‘left-wing, artsy-fartsy voters’ and coddle their ‘not as highly educated, right-wing, white, Dutch voters’, also referred to as ‘Henk and Ingrid’, The Smiths if you will, you know, regular Dutch people. Henk and Ingrid are much more inclined to go to a football game than catch Stravinsky’s Petrushka at the ballet.
On October 26, directed by Jules Buckley, an orchestra of some 150 musicians jammed out the Mambo from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. I can’t imagine Henk and Ingrid hate this so much they would want the government to pull the plug on all our major, award-wining orchestras, which is actually scheduled to happen.
Here are members of the Dutch Radio Orchestra and the Radio Choir staging a flashmob at The Hague central station against the Dutch government’s plans to scrap the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Center (MCO).
November 10, 2010
Contrary to the myths about the Dutch and marijuana, the authorities will let you own five plants even though it is technically illegal. Professional illegal growers usually have hundreds of them and then they really do give off a smell. To try and find these plantations Dutch authorities have apparently been handing out 30,000 scratch and sniff cards in The Hague and Rotterdam with a marijuana odour this week to alert citizens to what their neighbours may be up to. “Though it remains technically illegal, the Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes (0.18 ounces) of cannabis in 1976 under a ‘tolerance’ policy.”
Authorities believe there are some 40,000 illegal cannabis plantations in the Netherlands — hidden away in attics, apartments or warehouses. About 6,000 plantations are busted every year.
Of these about 300, each with between 600 and 1,000 plants, were uncovered in Rotterdam alone.
This reminds me of our posting about a German woman who complained that it “smelled like Amsterdam” at the neighbours. Another rookie myth is that Amsterdam has the coffeeshops and the pot, but in fact, pot, much like prostitutes, can be found throughout the entire country.
(Link: google.com, Thanks Greg! Photo by Eric Caballero, some rights reserved)
November 4, 2010
When I passed the zoo in Amsterdam yesterday, I spotted these metal statues on a grassy plot near the Nijlpaarden bicycle bridge. There are a T-rex, a centaur, a woman carrying a basket on her head, a monkey and others. I don’t think this is an official display, considering the unkept area it was in, but the people of the neighbourhood seemed to enjoy the little ad hoc park.
I haven’t been able to find out who made them, so any hints are appreciated.
September 15, 2010
“How hot are you on your gay capitals?” is the the slogan of a KLM promotional website, klmgaygetaway.co.uk. Guess the gay destination and you could win a trip to a gay capital. I’m going to try it first and then write the rest of my posting.
(time lapse, 2 min)
I got all 10 capitals right, they all had pictures of the skyline and a choice of three answers, so it was too easy and terribly cliché. I’m outing them for you: Amsterdam, New York, Rome, Vancouver, San Francisco, Barcelona, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Cape Town and Nice.
(Link: z24.nl)
