7- Amsterdam Free Day

Facial hair picture.

Today was free day. Slash recover from last night day. Most people got home at 5am or later last night. I woke up at 8am because the maid banged on my door, because my roommate Dave was asleep on the floor in the hallway- because his key wouldn't work and I didn't hear his knocking I guess and he didn't wanna bang real loud. Oops. So my alarm went off at noon, we swore at the fact that it was that late, and then fell asleep another hour till 1.

At that time we got up and went for pannenkoeken again- pancakes, that are basically giant crepes with whatever topping on top of it. I had the poffertjes, which are tiny fluffy pancakes soaked in butter, powdered sugar, and syrup. Amazing. And reasonably cheap. A nice side benefit is the people who had pancakes couldn't finish em anyway, so I got a good full meal after mine was gone!

I also tried my hand at eating a lemon peel rind, since my friend Kat does it all the time and insists its good. Fine, i tried it. Not bad!

Our pancakes. The one is just basically a plate of chocolate sauce. Tasted damn fine.

My poffertjes.

Happy people with their food. Alex, Dave, Jessica L-R

A sweet Ben & Jerry's Vespa delivery. By the way I scratched the screen on my camera today. Its officially broken in. I dunno how because I'm really careful with it. Working on getting over it. Man.

This was apparently an "antiek" sled.

This is a tiny delivery truck, and our tiny friend Dorit.

After pancakes a good contingent of us, like 10 people, walked to the museum campus. Van Gogh Museum and National Gallery of Art, where there's a huge quad as well. Cool.

Shauna and I didn't wanna go in and spend the time or money in the museums so we walked around. Went through a monstrous city park, lots of little rivers and grass and such. We also walked down the fashion district apparently, and there was a fashion show going all the way down the street. Didn't get any pictures cause it was just ending. The beats were loud. The people were...fashionable.

They also had some new Jaguar I've never seen before. Pretty sweet.....

Here's a bay window that was being held up by a scaffold. It was trying to collapse off the building.

The National Gallery

A cool water fountain, with an axis that went all the way across the park.

The "I AMsterdam" sign from the new Amstel Light commercials...

...that was fun to play on. And easy to climb.

More climbing... Jason will climb anything.

Jason about to jump from the top of the I

A weird alien creature thing, with a weird alien appendage down there.

Some other giant swing that we enjoyed.

That is all I have to say today. Might go get some more fries, split em with Shauna. People are at dinner now (at like 10pm). Probably going out later. I don't think I'm interested. We'll see.

Tomorrow we go to Utrecht and see the university there, and cool buildings as usual. Adios.

Two days until we fly to Barcelona and I guess start class then. But lets be honest, we might not even start class until Monday, who knows. I DO sorta feel bad for my classmates in Chicago. We have like a 12.5 week semester her instead of 16. Maaaaaaan.

6- Amsterdam Half Day

Alex told me to smile so I told HER to smile. This is out the back of the tram around the city. This city has many layers of transportation- surface trams, buses, subways, lots of feet and bike traffic, cars, scooters, motorcycles, mopeds...


Today was a half day. Since I went to bed at 3am it was nice to sleep until 11:30. Unfortunately it gets bright in my room so its hard to sleep in.

We aimed to see five things. Got to four, and it was still like 7pm. Last one will be Monday. Tomorrow is a free day so after a nap later tonight, tonight will be a long night. I'll be returning in the "early" group from the bar, which means pre-3am. The late group may see the sun.

First thing we saw was the "ING House". Didn't realize it housed ING Direct corporate until we got there. WOW.

On the way we saw some colorful building. The VU Medisch Centrum.

The ING House. Unreal. Whole thing on GIANT legs. Like an insect. HUGE. Glassy.

The backside. Wish we could get inside. I think something cool is in this back part...

We moved on to see a Steven Holl building, which was pretty modest and quite inaccessible. Its an addition on the back of a bank building. It butts up to the canal, which you can see here, and the front is surrounded by fence. Its clad in perforated aged copper. It houses what appears to just be a cafe type space inside.

The back. How did we get in? Waited for someone to left, and went in the gate when they went out. A Saturday, so no one else was around. And the people who left said it was fine. Ooooookaaaaaaay...so we walked around and took pictures.

This is the upclose.

From here, we walked to a cafe where a few people got drinks of caffeinated or alcoholic sorts, because Jimenez wanted to hang out with a friend of his we met up with. We've met up with many of his friends/former co-workers, and each time we do results in going for some kind of beverage or food. I and a few others fell asleep-ish in the cafe, which resulted in the bartender-ish lady complaining, even though we were practically the only business, and people had bought stuff. Whatever, so we moved on.

It was chilly, I was wearing shorts cause my key didn't work when I went upstairs to change into jeans before we left so I said screw it, and I was tired cause I think the continual moving about schedule is taking its toll on me and people. Tomorrow will be nice and leisurely.

We went on to take a ferry to what felt like an island cause it was a pretty wide canal or whatever that we crossed. We went to go see some homes/apartments made out of shipping containers. Cool looking, but didn't look that great to live in. I think a bunch of em could stack and make something sweet though- a cool house :)

Then we walked a bit over to this more industrial part. There was LOUD techno-ish/house music coming from some place that was totally fenced off and had tents and a stage, definitely some kind of festival- most of the people off our ferry went straight over there. But we didn't see any people outside it, couldn't hear anything but thumping bass and beats, and couldn't see anything, and it was the middle of the afternoon. Yet I think it was like a rave basically in there.

Anyway, we went into the warehouse next door, and first there are steps way UP to a skatepark, that is basically on a built third story over the end of the warehouse. From down below, you could see glu-lam beams holding it up that were like 3-4 feet deep, supported on giant columns.

Shoes that kids had thrown up over a beam over the park.

Kids enjoying the skate park.

The ridiculously huge beams holding up the skate park.

Beyond the skate park, which we had to talk to someone to get in to, from the other end of the warehouse, was this co-op type space, where artists and designers and such had built a steel framework into which they could plug shipping containers and other similar-sized spaces and build a small catwalk city of offices and studios within the warehouse. Quite remarkable. Really cool.

One of the main streets of the complex...

From the second level catwalk, there are more units on top of others...

From the ground, you can see the steel frameworks that people plugged into.

The main "street" again.

After this we were supposed to see one more place, but a classmate spoke up cause she was tired. When we found out it was another hour of travel, we decided she was right, and went to get food/showers/naps/beers/internetting, whatever people desired. I tagged along with a few people to get something I'd been craving. These fries. They're big and hot and crispy, and more importantly come in a giant paper cone with a tiny fork, covered in whatever sauce you choose- cheese sauce, peanut sauce, curry, ketchup, whatever. YUM-tastic.

So after starving myself all day (I had a sweet donut at noon- chocolate covered, cut in half, filled with an inch of custard- that cost bloody 3.50 euros) and eating only these free little cookie wafers that I steal by the pound from the breakfast area at our hotel, it was time to stuff myself. One big piece of sausage pizza and half of a giant thing of fries later, i was satisfied.

I wished it was time for a shower and a nap, but I needed internetting, and the shower is pointless given our plans later. So here I am, posting this stuff.

Last but not least- first, a random outdoor urinal apparently used for festivals. Space-effective, and not-so-private, but I guess good enough :)

A bike someone painted blue. Me likes.

Adios for now.

5- Rotterdam/Delft Revisited

Sorry if text in other entries is black. Something to do with formatting getting changed when I paste in pictures.

Facial hair and really red eyes. I already fear it may turn into a goatee. We'll see.

Something blooming that looked like flowers coming out of artichokes. Confused. Sweet though. Huge like sunflowers.

WHOA an old Rolls Royce stretch limo! Badass. In the town square. Someone got married. On a Friday at noon.

Today we went back to Delft. Kinda lame since Dave and I had been already, but we saw more and knew our way around to show everyone else a few things. So it was worth it.

Nice big square with trees and umbrellas- very great to hang out in. Nice light.

Someone had a whole poem (in Dutch) sand blasted into their front door.

A close up of the drifting, mostly not moving, green duck-weed stuff floating across the surface of the smaller canals in Delft. Looks like you could run across it.

A REAL close up. I hope someone appreciates this photo. Looks like green Dippin Dots!

Went back to TU Delft, the university, and had some free snacks and drinks left over from a reception they had in the architecture school. Then we found this room with a really cool piece of furniture-

Suh-weet. After this we got about seven people on it in another picture.

THIS thing houses a lecture room underneath and a couple levels of offices behind the amphitheatre seating, and the whole thing is inside, under a giant canopy of metal roofing that covers a previously outdoor courtyard space between wings of the architecture building.

THIS is how my firm will work one day- IDEA=>DRAWING=>BUILDING. Simple. All you need is one idea and one pencil and you can make a building. I have many ideas and at least a few pencils!

We walked past an iCentre, which seem to be the common thing in cities to be an "Authorized Apple Retailer". I watered at the mouth wanting to buy the new Mac OS that came out TODAY!!!! but I'll hafta wait until tomorrow in Amsterdam when I have time.

A building straight out of Star Wars. I think Jabba the Hut lives there.

People are tired.

A tall wall of books and my favorite color of blue wall. Its like Rothko Blue.

It's pretty chilly today but sunny and windy also. My new Nike running shoes and new Puma socks are breathing wondefully and keeping my feet pretty dry and comfortable and unsmelly after a full day on my feet. I'm impressed. Wish I could figure out the bug-bite itchy rashy thing on my heels.

Then we headed back to Rotterdam around 4 just to visit the office of OMA. Rem Koolhaas is the principal architect- one of the most famous in the world. We walked around a bit first and then using the map I took a picture of on my camera, made our way to OMA. It was kinda by nothing and pretty non descript, but the lobby was somewhat dramatic. We got upstairs and again had to sign the waiver that we wouldn't take pictures of all their sweet models. Dammit.

This awning was peeled right out of the building! So cool. On a random side street where no one goes. Shame.

Jason walking through a water fountain by placing his steps on streams of water so they wouldn't shoot and get him wet. Ingenious.

Another great blue.

This is cool. A schism in the base of some building.

Did I write about these somewhere? A vending machine but with people behind it, full of fried things. The Dutch love fried things and cheese. After the first day of people buying these, 8-10 of us got em this time. Fried cheese squares. 1 euro. Also have fried sticks that are full of thick meat gravy. Interesting......


The office trip was long and while I don't mind walking all day long, standing for an hour and a half is pretty rough. Our fearless leader then decided to take us to a Persian restaurant. Some decided to go back. After a 26 euro dinner (with wine, but water costs too!) I'm putting my foot down on any further pricey dinners. Can't do it. I had spent like three euros for lunch and was doing good until then. I gotta scrimp if I want to travel places every weekend and buy Tiffany something pretty for her birthday when she comes. Man.

This is about the only picture I was allowed to take. Proves I was in the same building that THE Rem Koolhaas occupies...sometimes.

It's already 11:30 and we're on the train home. Thankfully our plans for Utrecht tomorrow changed so we have the day in Amsterdam. Not starting until noon. I'll be up late tonight posting this garbage and then sleeping.

By the way the guy that toured us around OMA, is a conceptual design guy (meaning doing the awesome part and not crappy construction documents afterwards) who started at OMA two years ago right after grad school right after undergrad. Meaning he's like 27. Two years younger than me. Dammit.

I gotta find my in somewhere to the big time, to something really awesome. I'm not gonna spend my career under someone big or wishing I had a big break sometime.

Peace out- its not almost 4am here, and I'm finished posting all this garbage. And most of my classmates are still out at some bar. Oh Amsterdam.