9- Amsterdam Again.

Today started out kinda sucky. Our repeatedly emphasized plans to leave at promptly 10am so we'd make our 10:30 train was met with last person drifting out at 10:15. We still made it to the train, but the real problem came when we found out that some deal we'd be getting was no longer available- so not only did we have 5 hours of round trip train ride, but it'd cost 42.50 euro- yeah basically 60 bucks. Nuh uh. Well I still wanted to go cause what the hell, it was our last day, we were gonna see an iconic house, and the North Sea, and we were here to see architecture, we were at the train station, I was all prepared. But majority wanted to stay, so stay we did. Admittedly I could have gone alone if I'd wanted.

Instead we had another day around town. A few like minded souls decided to walk around for a few hours. That started with fries. Thanks Jason for modeling them.

and thanks for riding this tiny motorcycle for me :)

This is a cool castle-y restaurant near our hotel. Did I ever mention how we're a street away from the Red Light District? Lots of hotels, corner food places, tourists, stoned people, etc.

John (another future roommate, who's hysterical, and loves things like tiny cars) was checking out the open urinal. This thing is a little circular fence where you go to pee down a little drain. Many of them just empty into the canal.

We walked to the zoo, which was 18.50 euro!! So we got a free show from the fence of camels, monkeys in the distance, and some like longhorn kinda cows or something. What the heck...

John for example, loved this car. I did too, since it had limo seating in the back, with three tiny flip down seats behind the front seat facing backwards. Remarkable!

We then went to a playground and did some climbing of things. Jason and Dave took a nap on top of the tree house.

Then we went for a hike to the waterfront near-ish to the train station. Saw this building. Some like architecture institute or something.

Pretty cool looking. Expensive looking for being so small though...

We crossed a cool looking bridge in search of a building...

And we found it. Renzo Piano's NEMO, a Science Museum of some sort.

Cool looking. There's a pirate ship next to it...

From the "prow" side of the building...

The whole top of the building is stairs sort of, or a deck kind of, which we climbed a giant staircase to get to. There you have nice views of the city. Hard to see but its Shawna, Alex, Dave, Jason, John, and Britta, L-R.

One of the great views of the city from up there.

THEN we split up. Janis and I kept pushing on through to see more.

This is the new Amsterdam library, and next to it is some kind of school.

The school up closer, with sawtoothed windows, library up close.

The sawtooth windows. They have the color-changing film on them too!

Columns holding the back of the library up. Actually condos there I think. Amazing.

A view out the library, of the train station to the right, city to the lift, and current condo construction in front. Its a masterplanned peninsula kind of space.

Some interior of the library...

The next building. A music theatre of sorts. Great cantilevers.

Cool building. See the footbridge on the right over the canal?

Here's the footbridge. Amazing shapes, cool engineering with tension cables and compression shapes.

Another shot of this black unit cantilevered-ish.

Some random cool looking thing.

The terminal for the cruise ships that apparently leave Amsterdam...

An interior of the terminal.

Our day ended by meeting for dinner around 5:30, walking bloody forever to this Japanese noodle place (that was good for groups, and tasty, and not too expensive) and then taking pictures with the whole class and Jimenez in front of the I AMsterdam sign. We walked back, got some gelato (I can't wait to try different combinations EVERY day in Italy- today I got Red Grapefruit that was SO sour!) and then came home to pack.

I'm going to bed by 10:30 to be up by 5 in the lobby by 5:30 to leave by 6 to be to the airport by 7 for a 9:30 flight which gets in at 11:10, then we meet Xavier, the prof in charge of the Barcelona program, at the school at 1:30. As a group of 21. We have a lot of luggage and hafta get all over high heaven together. Gonna be a mess.

Toodles.