Floating garden

see that green spot next to the boat? a floating garden!! as those living on the water still want to have a garden.... i do wonder whether they can walk on it?!

Big bear...

ah, and me. lunging.... :) after a day of biking through amsterdam (where we passed lunging rembrandt, the fancy gym, the meadows and the marathon, i.e. nearly all my recent posts), we wanted to finally go home. not too far from our place was some roadwork and we had to take a detour. suddenly we faced a giant bear at a rather tiny playing field..... of course we had to stop again so i could take some pictures! (well, tim in this case...)

this bear made of concrete is 11 metres tall.... its called "staalman" (literally its "steel man", as staalmanplein is the name of the square), and is standing there since 2011. the buildings around the square were all recently built. the little park at the feet of the bear was co-designed by the kids in the neighborhood. one of their requests was a sculpture. they asked the dutch artist florentijn hofman (hes responsible for the giant floating duck and other giant sculptures around the world), and together they choose a bear. with a pillow under its arm. the pillow symbolizes bedtime; children should goto bed on time instead of being out on the street till late, so they are well rested again the next day. moreover, the pillow represents moving houses; all the people in the neighborhood had to literally take their pillows and leave their old houses for the new ones to be built....

Staying here...

this is the museum square in amsterdam sometime last month on a beuatiful summer evening. i showed you some pics before from this square (as you can see here). in the back you see the rijksmuseum, but we were actually going to the building behind us, the concert hall.

anyways. yes. tim is in groningen and i am staying in amsterdam. because yes! finally, finally. finally!! i am working again. it has taken forever, with lots of frustrations, desperations, hope, lost hope, hours and hours in the gym, and even more hours of searching and applying for jobs. i did not enjoy this time, so i am extremely happy to be working again. 

in fact, i sent the application for the job i have now already end of february. was invited for an interview in may. did not get the job (this was painful as i made it to the last 2). was invited for another position at the same place, got it and started a few weeks later (mid-june). before i knew, i suddenly had to work again! and so, in this case, having work was more important than living together. its not ideal, but neither was the situation when i was without work while i so desperately wanted (and needed) to work!!

more about my work another time. now its about time i start working for today!!! :)) i can just tell you its science-related, but i am not working as a scientist in a lab anymore. and i am very happy about that too...... :)

Another balcony

there are so many 4story apartment buildings in amsterdam... many have balconies and its interesting to see what people store on those....  i must say, i havent often seen bikes hanging like this on a balcony. thats more something for a storage room, but perhaps they dont have one. luckily we do have storage downstairs where we keep our bikes, i wouldnt like to have to store my bike outside. not only for the risk of being stolen, but also because i would really feel bad for it. rain is not good for a bike!!

most balconies are about the size as you see here, ours is no different. its not big, so i do try to keep it more tidy than this one. if not, we wouldnt be able to hang laundry, or to sit and enjoy the sun! we have some flowers too, but we dont have the fancy over-the-railing thingies to put them in. i must say i really enjoy having a balcony. i never had one before. of course, a garden would be even better, but a balcony will do at the moment. now that we have amazing weather, its nice to have breakfast and/or dinner outside. (secretly) observing the neighbors is of course fun too!!

Sitting lady

this statue is along the main street close to our apartment. it is a war monument, called the sitting lady, but i do not exactly know why it is associated with WWII (it was placed may 4th 1957. not at exactly this location, but somewhere close). in the back a woman just finished hanging laundry from the balcony. i was afraid she would think i was taking pictures of her, but i think she didnt notice. i actually was sort of taking pictures of her, i thought it was interesting together with this sitting lady.

many people around here hang their laundry from the balcony like this. until recently i only hung it on the balcony, but this week i tried the above method. as it hangs more freely, it dries faster. buuuttt... i am always afraid that i drop some of the laundry in the nieghbors garden (not freely accessible), or that the wind will blow it off the rack... if you look downstairs, you do see several pieces of laundry in various gardens..... some people hang out entire blankets and mattress covers, so they partially hang in front of their downstairs neighbors balcony, isnt that weird?!

Street view

like i showed you last time with the bikes parked right at the edge, here you can see how close to the water the cars are parked. just one wrong movement..... i guess having to park like this does make you a pro at some point, but hmmm..... not for me!

and like most canals, also this one is lined with boats. we have amazing weather at the moment (like really warm!! no jacket needed), so many people are out on their boats. at the end of our street is a canal, lined with boats as well. of course we have the one boat thats the get-together-point for all the alcoholics in the neighborhood (they never take the boat out, they only come to the boat and harass everyone passing by).

tomorrow its supposed to be even warmer (some 25C/77F). lets see if that really happens!

Parking & Canals

i took this picture last monday. ah, only now i realize that was yesterday. indeed, i took this picture yesterday, but somehow it seems ages ago... :) as you see, it was very sunny....

i guess most people know amsterdam has a lot of canals. 165 in total, some 60 miles of water, combined. there are also a lot of bikes, cars, houses, and not a lot of space. so... parking is often done right at the waterfront. unfortunately, its very important to always lock your bike to something (as i have written several times before). not only because someone might otherwise steal your bike.. every year between 12,000 and 15,000 bikes are fished out of the water!! im pretty sure most people dont have the habit of throwing their bikes into the water on purpose (i certainly dont have that desire), but someone else might just do it for you. here you can see a video of the piles of bikes coming out of the canals...

it also happens that cars get into the water. it is estimated that around 35 cars end up on the bottom of an amsterdam canal. they are parked at the edge as well, and having the car in reverse gear when expecting to go forward is sometimes all it takes to end up in the canal..... (this happened to one of tims colleagues. she got out fine but the car didnt... we dont need to park next to the water but just to be sure we did get an emergency hammer recently....)

Water play

the past week we had very mixed weather. sometimes sunny, then windy, then cold again.... here it was so-so. but that didnt bother the boys playing here! i guess every city has such a waterplay, where water comes out of the ground at random times, and kids are always attracted by it.... at first they run careful, trying not to get wet, but in the end they are usually soaked. the days are getting longer and longer. the sun goes down after 9 by now! thats something i did miss when living in boston.

i wrote about the entrance gate in the background once before. you can see that here.

Little kings...

another picture from kings day! i totally forgot to post yesterday. but well, now you see it today. a street in amsterdam, close to the vondelpark, a large park near the center of amsterdam (named after the dutch author joost van den vondel). its a very pretty park, always busy with people biking, lots and lots of people jogging (we recently did that for the first time there and it is indeed nice, but i would only do it when its not crowded), people bbqing when the weather allows, children playing... during kings day its filled with people selling their stuff.

in the photo above i liked the tiny house at the end, it looks a little out of place, next to the other house blocks. most houses in amsterdam are 4 stories high. blocks and blocks, all slightly different in design and placement etc you can see throughout amsterdam (we live in a less fancy version of one, for example). i think they are almost always 4 stories high as most of them were built in a time when there were no elevators in apartment blocks yet. climbing up 4 stairs is the absolute maximum to climb. we live at the 4th floor ourselves (in the usa you would call it the 5th floor, btw), and am always totally done after the 4 stairs. especially with lots of groceries. no matter how much i go to the gym, or how long i run, bike or swim, i am panting after climbing up 4 stairs... as i am pretty average, i guess this goes for most people... ;)
ah, and do you see all the flags? unlike in the usa, the flag is not displayed on a daily basis. only during certain events the dutch are truly patriotic (kings day, soccer tournaments, etc..).

Marathon day

today its marathon day in boston again. while writing this its 6 in the morning there, but im sure many runners are up already... 36,000 people will run the marathon this year, and many spectators are expected. security is high, many additional cameras have been installed along the course, and you cannot take big backpacks with you. cnn tells me that "containers with more than 1 liter of liquid, costumes covering the face, and bulky clothes such as vests with pockets won't be allowed".

im amazed by how many people are able to run a marathon, or even a half..., but there are far more people who cannot. many are not even interested, of course. i never used to be interested in sports, either. i hated gym classes at school and used every trick and excuse not having to  participate (other than gymnastics, i ofcourse never skipped class, i was far too well-behaved for that). during the last year of my PhD i started swimming before work. when the pool closed for the season, i felt the urge to continue sports to my surprise, and i decided i could just run around a lake not too far from my apartment. now that i was a regular swimmer, i surely could run, right?! well, of course not (duh!!), it turned out. the next day i could hardly walk...... exit running!

i picked up running again in boston, thanks to the gym at our fancy apartment complex (and out of necessity, in the netherlands our main mode of transportation was biking, in boston it was the subway, and the car during the weekends).  but... i continue to be a lousy runner. i continue doing it, as i continue to hope to improve myself, but i hardly do. after each run i think; well, perhaps NEXT time it will be better?! perhaps next time i can try interval training? maybe next time i can try to run faster? but each time i am glad i can just keep up the pace i am running, and that i can run at all... and maybe i should just be satisfied with that....

They read?

this store sells all kinds of appliances, but they dont like it when dogs urinate on their displayed goods. the yellow note says: "doggies, you can look, but do not piss on it!" in dutch it sounds like a silly rhyme for the "kijken" (to watch) and the "zeiken" (to piss). but i just didnt know dogs could read... :)

the weather has cooled down again. buuuuuhhhh. now we are back to normal temperatures for this time of the year.

DInosaur egg

even though we could not find a signature, we recognized this baby dinosaur as most likely made by ROA, whose murals we also saw in miami and a deserted place in california (a picture i still have to post). ROA is originally from belgium, but he has been all around the world to paint the most amazing murals... i like the mom with the 2 kids in the "bakfiets", all 3 looking at it...

yesterday they announced obama will visit amsterdam while he is in the netherlands for the nuclear security summit in the hague. just now we watched some program where they interviewed some american tourists in amsterdam. one lady mentioned that perhaps obama would be disturbed by all the graffiti we have here (indeed, we have a lot more graffiti, lots of ugly graffiti too, than boston for example). and 2 young girls said that they didnt like they have to pay for everything, even for a glass of water (thats true, and i also miss the glass of water you immediately get in an american restaurant).

Perfect weather!!

it seems almost impossible to believe, but today the weather was even better than yesterday. and today i had signed up for an official run!! 7.5 kms. i was a bit nervous... since a while, me and tim do runs of 10 kms every now and then, but then its not official. since it was international womens day yesterday, this run was only for women. that was only a tiny bit comforting. and it meant twice as many cute outfits i had to compete with. nononono! it was a running competition, not an outfit one..... ;) 

above you see me in blue (but with purple running shoes; they are the best!!) and my friend in orange. i finished under 50 minutes (as you can see here), and i was happy with that. many were much faster than me, but i already ran faster than i normally do.... and while tim came home this morning after his 2nd of 3 night shifts, he went with us, and followed us by bike along the course. several times during our run he would bike past us, and then i would suddenly see him leaning against his bike, taking pictures. after which he would jump on his bike again... so if not for the race, i had to keep running for those pictures!! (how romantic is all that!! no?) afterwards, seeing those pictures, made me think of this, or this.... i most certainly need to practice a bit more.....

after that, tim really really had to sleep and i just enjoyed the sun on the balcony..... :)

Leaning forward

in amsterdam (but also in the older parts of other dutch cities), you see a lot of houses like above. leaning forward. sometimes they almost look as if they are about to topple over, on top of you while you are watching, wondering what happened....?

interesting thing is, its not because they are old and in their age started to tilt forward and forward, every year a little bit more (although sometimes that actually is the case). no, its because the dutch did it on purpose. practical as they are... staircases are often very steep and narrow, so often stuff was moved into and out of the house through the windows. on top of most old houses is a hook, so that you can attach a rope and pull stuff up to the desired floor (if you look carefully, you can see the hooks on the top of the house above). the tilt now comes in handy; there is less chance that the lower levels get damaged by the dangling stuff thats being pulled up. another reason is possibly that the facade of the house is protected (at least a little) from rain when its built like this. finally, its thought that it was done on purpose because the top of the house was usually the most ornamented. by building the house tilted forward a little, more emphasis was put on that piece of art.... and ofcourse, building houses like this comes with another example; each upper floor has a little more space, if even just an inch!!

Free flowers!!

yesterday, there were free (!!) tulips available on the dam square in amsterdam. last year, while still in boston, i had seen the pictures on biebkriebels blog (here), so when i read this event was coming up again, i wanted to see it for myself! it marks the start of the tulip season; tulips are now available everywhere again, and it is a way for the florists to promote the tulip (and flowers in general). the girl with the orange jacket was with the organization of the event. her jacket says; "its time for tulips again!"

when we arrived, the event had been going on for 2 hours or so. i was a bit surprised and disappointed that the flower-pick-area was fenced off (but maybe without the fences it would be totally uncontrollable?), and i also didnt see the "artwork"; the tulips were placed in a pattern so that from above it looked like a particular painting. i think we were too late; many tulips had been plucked already! in total there were some 200,000 free to pick for anyone who was willing to stand in line a little. thats what we did; we both got a plastic bag and were free to pick as many tulips as we liked! we both filled our bags and that was more than enough (now at home we have 2 full vases, its so pretty!!), but some asked for a second bag or brought big bags themselves; i really wondered what those people were going to do with SO many flowers... they came with the bulbs still attached to them, so i am now in the process of drying the bulbs. then i have to wash them and get all the green and roots off and then they can be planted later this year (i had to look all that up, i had no clue!). so... i hope my mom wants some bulbs, as we dont have a garden. apparently, most tulips need to be taken out of the ground each year after flowering, dried, cleaned and kept till its time to plant them again...

BOLO boost

as i was writing this post yesterday i got so bored by it, that i forgot to post it! its still boring, but now i post it anyways... :D

see the grey in this picture? thats the dutch weather. mix it with some wind and lots of rain.... its not cold, but neither is it pleasant. it rained a lot today, just as it did yesterday, and i think the day before that...

i took this picture for the pink poster. it says "know that BOLO is more and more becoming SOHO", indicating that BOLO (the neighborhood that we live in, its an abbreviation for bos en lommer, as i wrote previously) is becoming a cool place to be/live, just like SOHO in new york. i can imagine it once happening, but not yet.... in our street they are renovating several old apartment blocks and selling them for too muchh money; previously they were cheap, badly maintained, crappy apartments (just like ours). so yes, i guess they do that to try and turn it a bit into SOHO here. this poster is for the local television station "AT5", apparently they are not doing well and need more viewers. we havent had a tv in almost 4 years now, but i actually liked to watch the local amsterdam news. when looking up more about this particular advertisement, i stumbled upon a blog that discusses the lower "sentence"; "weet je stad". translated literally, it says "know your city". i guess i did just that and didnt think about the bad dutch. in dutch its not a sentence at all, indeed! it should be "ken je stad". now, there is also a blog called "bolo boost", which is reporting about anything cool/interesting etc happening in our neighborhood.

now, i know nothing about the yellow ad. its something about parking and "man, go bricken". i have no clue what "bricken" is, and im sure this post would be even more boring if i would go and find out....

Anonymous artist...

im very bad at street names, so i wouldnt be able to tell you where exactly i took this picture, but its in amsterdam.. :) i have to say, one of the reasons (among others) i am taking less pictures now, is because im usually riding a bike when i see something.... either its too busy to just stop, or im just too lazy, or we go too fast and i realize i saw something interesting when we passed it already. but here it was january 1st, there werent too many people on the street and we decided to finally stop. i had seen this sculpture before and i like it a lot! people call it "man with violin case", or "man who tries to catch line 10". google told me a lot about the sculpture. for example, it was black (or very dark blue) originally. then, in 1989  it was suddenly gone. the neighborhood had no clue what happened to it, and thought it was stolen. one day it came back; blue. in need of a touch up again, it was removed in 2011, and came back another shade of blue. people protested and it came back blue as above.

yet... the most interesting about this sculpture, is that the general public does not know the sculptor! in 1982 it just appeared, placed there during the night. between 1989 and 1995, 5 other sculptures were placed in various places in amsterdam. all during the night; the following morning they were just there. some speculated it was our former queen, but the municipality of amsterdam received these sculptures as a gift, provided that the artist remains anonymous..... allegedly, the sculptor is a medical doctor by day and an anonymous artist by night... :) how cool is that?! i should find the other sculptures as well... when i do, i will surely post them here.... (unless im on a bike and too lazy to stop....)

Grey Amsterdam

its so very grey out!! i think the netherlands would look a bit nicer if we had some sunshine, but its mostly grey these days. its well after 8 in the morning before its light out, and around 4.30 when its dark again. only a few hours of grey light each day!

above the center of amsterdam. the fancy building to the right used to be the post office (i dont know how long ago), but now it houses a shopping plaza. too bad all the shops are boring. somehow we go in there more often than not when we are around, but its really always boring. here you see the baking lane is separated from the cars only by a dotted line, but at most places the bike lanes are really separated from the main road. in the middle you see the trams and then the cars in the opposite direction. the car on the tram tracks is a cab. only cab drivers with a license can drive on the tracks (it will save them some time driving there), and for that you need to take a theory and driving test. a crane in the back; there is always some construction going on.....

Dumped portrait

after we had put our bikes among these here (always park your bike between others so that it doesnt stand out; especially if it looks nice. if it blends in with the others, at least i think, the chance of it getting stolen are a tiny bit slimmer. a tiny bit...), i saw this portrait! after we had walked around in the city center, had coffee and pie, visited a museum, the portrait was still standing there... i really wondered why!! did someone trash it? did someone else find it there and decided to put it out? questions questions! :)

In BOLO

BOLO is the neighborhood we currently live in. its short for "bos en lommer". wikipedia tells me the neighborhood was named bos en lommer after a farm that was demolished in 1940 (it must have looked something like this, with a thatched roof). at the place of the farm is now a little (and quite sad) shopping square where we get most of our groceries. its hard to imagine how this area must have looked so many years ago! the english wikipedia about our neighborhood is just a few sentences, and describes, sadly, what it kind of is. i will just copy it here: "Situated in the west of Amsterdam, the Bos en Lommer quarter offers easy access to both the exit way (A10 West) and public transport. Most of the buildings are four-storey high apartment blocks, with relatively low rents. Bos en Lommer is scheduled for urban renewal to increase high-income inhabitants in the hope that there will then be a decrease in crime, noise and litter."

above a street a little further from our apartment. just a few 100 metres further my bike got stolen back in august. wheneveer i pass this place, i am still looking for it, but of course... its not there.. :( i actually wanted to photograph the name of the street; its called "akbarstreet". akbar was an indian emperor in the 16th century who advocated tolerance for minorities. the street was named after akbar in the 60s. i wanted to know why, but all i could find was an old article from 2002, describing a reporter visiting some of the people living in this street (and in the BOLO quarter). many of them were (and still are) originally from morocco. he asks them why there is so much trash lying on the streets, even though trash is collected every day, mentioning that in morocco streets dont look like this. the answer is interesting; "well, over there they dont collect the trash so you have to clean it up yourselves!"

anyways.... can you see the bag of the lady?! its quite weird. it says: "i love [a] princess but she must die". eehmmmm?!