Amsterdam

Yesterday I took the train to Amsterdam. Along the way - in the city area called the "Bijlmer" - we passed the Atlas office building where I worked from 1984 to 1988 while working for Fokker Aircraft. I lived in downtown Amsterdam and took the "Metro" city rail to these offices. Four years without a car. The train station is called "Bijlmer ArenA"; named partly after the soccer club AJAX's stadium, the ARENA. Enjoyed several games there, once with Mark when he was 12 and went with me to Holland for a visit and to attend the wedding of one of his Dutch family members.

One of my university friends lives in this house built following the "Amsterdamse School" architectural philosophy of the sixties. Their backyard borders one of the many "grachten", the canal system of the city. Age and Lea have a fantastic location here...

These canals are in a part of the city called "Oud Zuid". Many small boat owners are allowed to leave their small boats in the water (but are advised to take them out during the winter months when the canals do freeze up during a few weeks (January-February period). In Holland there is no recycling pick up services by the municipality; instead, the city has everywhere recycling containers where citizens are encouraged to deposit glass, carton and other recyclables. 

Mostly smaller - compact - cars here in the city (as well much throughout European countries), but you can also see luxury cars as old model Jaguars. Quite a few electrical cars already and loading stations in streets throughout the city. I noticed three of them in one street block.

All payments have to be made electronically through bankpasses. That system allows for apps with messaging. The red sticker in the photo above, tells the users that it will send them a message when the loading station is available after the user finds it busy when first hoping to load their car. Next to all this high tech, it is always fun to see the simple "playground" below (likely just an individual in the street without a personal backyard who placed it there....).

And a blog post on Amsterdam without a few pics of Dutch bicycles cannot be complete. The photo above and the ones below are made in one city block....; all sizes and many, many electric and electric assisted (this seems to have been a craze here in the city). For foreigners the cyclists were already always a thing to watch out for, but with the new fast electric bikes (with no sound) it was even for me reason for some additional caution when crossing streets and street corners....