Hamsterdam

Get it?! A hamster, in a dam!? I googled Amsterdam puns and got this. I was pretty excited ahah... (If you ever read this Barbs, I am so sorry). But anyway! After Rotterdam we went to Amsterdam. Our first visit was to a place called Park 20/20, which I have very conflicting feelings on.

They describe themselves as a “cradle to cradle inspired development”. It is an extensive and ambitious plan to build a hub of sustainably-focused office buildings with many different functions, such as creating green space, generating energy, and providing dining areas. The concept of “cradle to cradle” essentially means that everything must be reused, and each material can be used for multiple different functions.  One organization’s waste could be another’s “nourishment,” as it was said. 

It definitely led the implementation of several new and creative ideas, such as these locking bricks that don't use mortar and can be easily dismantled for future use.

They also reused planks of wood from the old harbor in the creation of greenspace, which applies to the "cradle to cradle" idea. However, the guy giving the presentation was kind of a complete tool. I don't mean to be harsh, but it seem to me that he didn't actually care at all about sustainable measures, just about how he could market it to make the most profit possible (see above, with the classic grease hair and sunglasses). 

This very cool structure was for a travel company. It was part of their attempt to build a work of art, because sustainability "isn't only for hippies!" I am just slightly conflicted on the whole thing. Big business does need to change, so at least there is some attempt, but is this really sustainable? One of the first points the presenter made was that these were cradle-to-cradle inspired buildings, meaning that there is no evaluation system. So, he could make all these plans about how great his ideas were and talk his way out of any critique (he was definitely a good smooth-talker, we asked him about becoming carbon neutral and he just rambles about how nothing is carbon neutral because humans are carbon based and it sounded really great! Until you realized that he didn't answer the question about emissions, just distracted us with a completely irrelevant fact). , when it is unclear whether these are actually doing anything.

They beautiful buildings, and again, I don't mean to critique businesses that are at least doing something outside of the norm, but huge amounts of resources, both in terms of monetary investment and material use, even if it somehow could be reused sometime in the future, are going into the creation of theses "works of art," when Amsterdam has almost full office buildings almost completely empty after the recent economic crisis. So, rather than starting from scratch, why didn't they just use some of these methods on those other buildings, rather than glamorizing them in these huge, and frankly excessive, buildings? 

Anyway, that's my little rant on that. The next day we went on a bike tour of the city. I knew that Amsterdam had a very large biking culture, but I did not quite expect it to be as chaotic as it was. There were several near death experiences with either running into other bikers, cars, or even the tram, which basically just comes out of no where and stops for no one. But it was a lot of fun. It was a great way to see the city and our tour guide shared a lot of very interesting Dutch history! For one, where does the name Amsterdam come from? The area has had settlers since the 1200, mostly fisherman and subsistence farmers. Until one day that is, where, as the story goes, as herring, which is the country's official bird, asked a group of fisherman why they didn't put a bridge across the river? Well they thought that was a good idea, so they dammed the river Amstel. Who knows, maybe the tour guide made that whole thing up to see what he could get away with with naive American tourists, but whatever. It was a neat story haha.

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Our tour guide also pointed out how few monuments are seen throughout Amsterdam. This is primarily because the Dutch did not have an official monarchy until the 1800's. Thus, because there was no monarchy trying to show off their wealth to other royals, such as those seen in France and even some areas of Copenhagen. 

We also discussed the socially excepted “no harm” rules, where if someone’s actions are not hurting someone else, then there is no reason to stop them, as well as that there should not be greater punishment than necessary for crimes, which would only be further harming society. Thus, this mindset lead to the legalization of marijuana and prostitution, as that at least regulates the practices, in theory decreasing the harm done to society by weakening the power of exploitative and corrupt leaders. In my mind, while the system is not perfect, there is a lot to be said by acknowledging the fact that these practices are going to take place. Rather than channeling resources into fruitless efforts to stop them, the government can at least provide some sort of protection against exploitation. (One interesting aspect is the high percentage of prostitutes who are not Dutch, thus pointing to the question of whether the immigrants came on their own initiative or someone else’s. So, again, not perfect, but definitely interesting and should not be entirely discounted).

 

The architecture of the city was absolutely breathtaking. We went on a walking tour of the city one of the days, and this post is already way too long, so I won't get into it too much, but it's just so beautiful.

This was our tour guide, who claimed that the entire "hippie" culture of the 1960's began at this statue. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was, but one man began protesting, and somehow it led to similar protests throughout Europe, eventually leading to the peace-loving culture we all associate with the 1960s. It was a really great story though, I just can't remember it... Hopefully it will come to me (or I'll find it online if it wasn't completely fictional ahha) and I'll share it later.

When the city was first expanding, the government placed a width tax on new buildings. So, rather then growing out, it was cheaper to grow up. So, you see all of these beautiful Dutch Renaissance buildings squished together. Our tour guide compared them to teeth, so when something needs to be torn down, they just knock out the tooth and replace it (see the section third from the right?).

Hey look Becca, a picture of me! Does that make our count 2 so far?

3!

I did not have the chance to actually go into the Anne Frank house, but it was actually very emotional for me just to see this physical building so connected to a narrative I know so well. The Holocaust is something we all  know happened, but it's also this inconceivable event that is utterly impossible to for me to wrap my head around.

I also got to visit the Van Gogh museum! I spent a good 2 and a half hours wandering around and taking everything in. I just loved seeing all of these beautiful works of art I've always admired, actually in person. But, no pictures were allowed. It's not the same anyway... 

I amsterdam. This is just a really big basically tourist trap in front of the national museum. But it was very cool and fun to pose with!

This is an Apple store that opened within the last month or so. Largest in the world. Seriously. 

We had several very cool dinners on the trip. This picture was from a demonstration style dinner, where we had 5 small, all vegetarian, courses that we took turns helping with! The couple running the restaurant develops different themes for each meal and ours was celebrating the Dutch landscape (the above picture shows burning hay with a cabbage bundle containing a kale mixture with a medley of mushrooms, representing the countryside). Almost all of their ingredients are local (meaning from the Netherlands) and the ones which that is impossible (coffee and chocolate) they make sure are fair-trade and organic. The dinner was over 4 hours long, but it was so fun, just sitting around, talking, and really enjoying the delicious food!

The next night was a Indian dinner, where we had a 30 minute meditation session before eating. It was towards the end of the trip, so we were all tired and just needed a good stress relief, and the meditation certainly did that. It was just so nice. There was a couple who owned the restaurant and put on the meditation session and they were very "new-agey" and had very alternative views of the world, but I loved it! They were interesting to talk with and had an adorable dog that we were able to play with.

My class mediating before the meal.

Overall, it was a wonderful 6 days, but I was certainly ready to be home. Amsterdam was great and beautiful and had so much beautiful architecture and canals, but I'd prefer Copenhagen anyday.