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Street Art and Update
As June wraps up my last courses abroad are coming to an end. I’ve finished my final paper for Philosophy, Cognition, Brain (a 30 page beast of a paper), and have one more paper (shorter) to write for Psychology of Religion…though I haven’t worked much on the last since my brother (Nathan) has been visiting for the past week. We met in Helsinki, Finland last week and stayed with a Finnish friend and a few other Americans I’ve traveled with over the course of the past year. (I’ll have more to say about Finland in its own post soon)
Since returning to Amsterdam Monday, I’ve been showing Nathan around the city via bike, and catching up on paper writing while he explores museums on his own. One such bike trip around the city included a visit to the middle part of Spuistraat to see some of Amsterdam’s street art. Later in the week we biked along the southern part of the IJmeer (The Netherlands inner sea) to visit castle Muiderslot (in a small town about 20km south east of Amsterdam).
For now it’s back to paper writing…
Link reblogged from can't Dutch this with 18 notes
can't Dutch this: How to welcome home your study abroad student →
I found this to be a pretty useful article concerning re-entry after studying abroad. I am posting it for is for my friends, family, and fellow study abroad participants to read and share. I would like to hear from people who have already made a transition and/or people who will return home soon…
Originally posted by a fellow American-abroad-in-Hollander (took a few grammatical liberties with that conglomerate), but hits a few points that have come up in my thoughts and conversations as of late, specifically numbers 3 & 8. Even though I still have over two months before returning to the states, I’m already realizing how much I’ve come to love my home across the pond and how difficult it will be to leave such a constantly evolving and stimulating environment populated with a diverse amount of amazing people. (Follow the link above for the article)
In other news, I’ve finished my finals. Both were this morning…let’s just say my brain feels like it’s been neuken’d (I’ll let you use your inferential skills on that last word…).
Visit to Brouwerij De Molen back in April
You may have noticed the posting frequency has slowed over the past week. It’s exam time, so most of my waking hours are being spent studying for two exams (Human Computer Interaction and Applied Cognitive Psychology), working on a group project, and writing a paper. At the same time I have a friend from home visiting, so it has become a balancing act between playing tour guide around Amsterdam and studying for finals.
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Queen’s Night and Day in Amsterdam
Queen’s Day, or Koninginnedag in Dutch, is one of the most popular holidays in The Netherlands and one of the biggest parties in the world (especially in Amsterdam). While Queen’s Day is officially April 30, the festivities start the night of April 29 with many bars and clubs hosting special Queen’s Night events…but for most people it’s just an excuse to start celebrating early in the streets in anticipation of Queen’s Day. The naive often overdue it on Queen’s Night and don’t see much of Queen’s Day itself, while the wise and foresighted balance it out to get the best of both (I was in the second group mostly thanks to the advice of I gained from some Dutch).
Queen’s Day itself starts around 6am with the streets, from the suburbs to the city center, filling with every item imaginable for sale, like a Amsterdam-wide yard sale. Since I had to get that previously mentioned balance to make it through both days, I didn’t make it out for the morning street markets (though I did see people marking off their spot on the street for selling in the earlier morning hours while biking back to Uilenstede). By the time I made it downtown around 1:30pm, the city was overflowing with people, orange people, or at least wearing all sorts of orange clothing and accessories. Orange is the color of the Dutch royal family, House of Orange-Nassau, so on Queen’s Day, Dutch National Football team matches, and many other major sporting events, Oranjegekte (orange craze) takes over the country. We spent the day wandering between all the major -pleins and squares of the city, listening to live and DJ’d music, and consuming the “occasional” beverage, with a lot of Canal Chilling* in between. As the sun started to set we started the long walk back to our bikes (which were far south of the city center), but fortunately the walk wasn’t without its excitement for we were joined by thousands of Dutch who were heading home as well. Once we found our bikes (the combination of Dutch street names and the occasional beverage can be a hinderance), we rolled off for Uilenstede finally arriving home around 11pm. To sum it up, this won’t be my last time celebrating Queen’s Day in Amsterdam.
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*Usually involves finding a sunny place to sit on the edge of a canal while watching boatloads (or really anything that floats) of drunk Dutch dancing to techno and house music. At times may involve squirting passing boats and pedestrians with whatever liquids are closest at hand (let’s just say there’s not the possibility that it didn’t involve canal water) with a squirt gun recovered from the mayhem near Museumplein.
Photo reblogged from Fuck Yeah The Netherlands with 44 notes
Museumplein in Amsterdam yesterday
Yesterday was Queen’s Day, a massive party in the streets celebrating the Queen’s birthday in which everyone is wearing orange. Look for a Queen’s Day themed post in the near future…
Spring in Amsterdam
Spring has arrived in the Dam. Even though it is cloudy for nearly two-thirds of all daylight hours in the Netherlands, the past two weeks have been almost entirely sunny days with temperatures ranging from 16 - 22C (60 - 71F). Stay tuned for more Prague posts…
Anonymous asked: How high is the tallest building in Amsterdam? Or how many floors does it have?
The tallest building in Amsterdam is the Rembrandt Tower standing at 135 meters, totaling 35 floors. It is located to the north east of Uilenstede (where I live) along the Amstel river.
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First International Football Game: Ajax v. VVV Venlo
Sunday in Amsterdam was a sunny yet cold day; also a perfect day to bike down to the Amsterdam Arena to see Ajax (pronounced eye-ax), Amsterdam’s professional club team, play VVV Venlo (another Dutch league team). I’ve been trying to get tickets to an Ajax (or Holland’s national team) game since arriving last summer, but tickets are usually only available to Ajax club members (or they are very expensive without membership). Fortunately, a friend of a friend who is friends with a Dutch guy was able to acquire four tickets at 31 euro a piece (without membership it would have been 60+ euro).
To give an idea of the skill level of each team: Ajax is ranked 3rd in the top Dutch league and often does well when playing other international club teams of the Champions League; VVV Venlo on the other hand is ranked 17th in the Dutch league. The game started off with Ajax dominating, and it quickly saw them score a goal in the 11th minute. Ajax continued to dominate the rest of the game, with the occasional offensive sprint made by Venlo, but managed to accomplish nothing for the majority of the 90 minutes. So one could say the game was somewhat anti-climatic after the 11th minute goal. Either way, seeing a professional football game in Europe was an experience to be had…and best of all: seeing an entire stadium of Dutch sing along to Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as half-time drew to a close. See for yourself…
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New Years in Amsterdam - 2010
In Amsterdam, one could consider December 26, the day after Christmas, as the start of New Year’s celebrations. Around 8am that morning I heard the first of the fireworks I would continue to hear on and off for the next six days.
Of course come New Year’s Eve the number of fireworks increased exponentially. Since public transportation shut down around 8pm for the festivities (and for other reasons I was soon to discover) we all hopped on our bikes around 11pm and headed downtown. Arriving downtown was like arriving in a war zone: broken glass and bottles being flung everywhere, every kind of firework imaginable being set off or thrown into the streets, and anything easily carried and flammable was on fire in the streets. Might sound bad, but most people were in a happy, non-violent, destructive mode.
For in-depth coverage: http://letterfromthenetherlands.blogspot.com/2011/01/deaths-injuries-vandalism-just-peaceful.html
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