February 2, 2021

Iranian spy and terrorist stayed at Dutch hotel unencumbered

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:09 pm

Flag of Iran

Assadollah Assadi, a 48-year-old Iranian diplomat wanted by Belgian authorities for spying and terrorism, apparently stayed at a hotel in Meppel, Drente without any problems.

According to books in the hands of Flemish broadcaster VRT, Assadi stayed at Hotel de Poort, across the street from the Meppel train station. Hotel owner Henk van Duinen has not been able to find any record of the stay from five years ago. The Dutch authorities knew nothing of Assadi’s visit to Meppel either.

Assadi was arrested in Germany, and is facing a 20-year sentence. He’s been held in a Belgian prison awaiting the verdict in his trial next Thursday. It has recently emerged that while in custody he was visited by his superiors from Tehran. Apparently, he also gave other spies and terrorists instructions.

The Iranian frequented public spaces in many smaller European cities such as Meppel where he made appointments at tourist spots. The data reveal a predilection for meetings outside castles and fortresses. The only notable person I know from Meppel is my bookkeeper.

(Links: vrt.be, rtvdrenthe.nl, Image of Flag of Iran, some rights reserved)

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May 17, 2019

Airbnb rents out illegally placed containers, doesn’t check

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:23 am

Airbnb, the rent-out-your-place chain that local politician for housing Laurens Ivens keep saying he’ll teach them a lesson, but constantly fails to do so (in Dutch) (and then goes on Twitter and blames foreigners), always makes the news in a bad way. For starters, people who rent through airbnb are supposed to rent for no more than 30 days, but Ivens has done nothing to make that concrete, and so places end up being rented for a total of 60 days and that now includes sea containers because nobody checks but the tourists being duped.

In Amsterdam, two illegally placed sea containers on the side of the road were casually put up for rent in the Spaarndammerstraat and Pauwenpad, downtown Amsterdam. The containers had some beds on the floor and that’s it. The ridiculous offer was pointed out by Dutch Twitter account Pretpark Amsterdam (Pretpark means amusement park), a group that campaigns against the negative effects of tourism in the city.

“Employees of the municipality of Amsterdam dragged the ‘hotel’ away on Sunday morning. After complaints from local residents, it turned out that the city district had not issued a permit for placing a container.”

According to Statistic Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam has 863.202 residents as of 1st January 2019, and will surpass its highest amount of residents in its history soon enough, if that’s not already the case. Sadly, this means that all kinds of people will try and trick tourists out of money and that Ivens will continue to be shocked about it, sympathise, and proceed to do nothing but talk and blame foreigners like the novice bigots that his socialist party is aspiring to be.

(Link: .tellerreport.com, Photo: containers that students actually live in, in Amsterdam North)

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March 8, 2018

Floating hotel for Dutch theme park in Japan

Filed under: Design,General by Orangemaster @ 10:02 am

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Huis ten Bosch (Hausu Ten Bosu) is a theme park near Nagasaki, Japan that is apparently more than three times the size of Tokyo Disneyland and still bigger than Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea combined. Its theme is The Netherlands – all of it – and many of the famous buildings of the Netherlands have 1:1 replicas.

The Dutch-themed attraction park will be launching a floating capsule that can accommodate two or three people, with its the floor designed as an accommodation cabin and the second floor as an observation dome. The service is due to start this summer. The company plans to have a ship tow the hotel between the theme park and a nearby island.

And yes, it’s giving me a strong James Bond vibe, if you remember the final scene of The Spy Who Loved Me and the floating rescue pod that just happens to have Dom Pérignon 1952 champagne on ice.

(Link and photo: english.kyodonews.net)

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October 14, 2014

Stones adorning hotel could fall down at any time

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 3:03 pm

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Loose stones on the façade of the DoubleTree hotel in Amsterdam next to Central Station has been called a ‘life-threatening situation’ in a report obtained by newspaper Telegraaf this week. In fact the hotel director is suing project developer MAB who built the hotel three years ago for 140 million euro. The long story short is that the stones aren’t set properly and could very well fall and injure people – or worse.

For all of you in Amsterdam, I suggest not walking the busy route from the hotel to the city library (OBA). Sure, probably nothing will happen, but you don’t want to be the one who gets hit by a falling stone. At the time of writing this, the English-language press was still quiet about the news.

(Link: www.dichtbij.nl, Photo of DoubleTree Hotel Amsterdam by ptc24, some rights reserved.

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February 26, 2013

From stuffy to cosy, a jail turned into a hotel

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 2:59 pm

The Dutch have made hotels out of tree tents, quaint Dutch houses and even key cards. Now it was time to turn being stuck in a room into a real hotel experience.

Het Arresthuis in Roermond, Limgburg is a Dutch luxury hotel in a building that was a jail for more than 150 years. Guests at the hotel can stay in jail cells or, for a more luxurious experience, the warden’s quarters.

Part of the Van der Valk hotel chain, Het Arresthuis had been abandoned for years, but was reopened in 2002 as an emergency facility for ‘body stuffers’, people who smuggle hard drugs into the Netherlands by ingesting them.

(Link: laughingsquid.com, Photo by Ken Mayer, some rights reserved)

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