Wednesday evening i attended a couple of events connected to the Grachtenfestival (Canal Festival): the first was a canalboat tour of the architecture connected to the islands on the Ij (the river separating north of the city and what is seen as Amsterdam proper).
despite my knowledge of architecture (especially names of architects) being somewhat limited to the level of "that's a fascinating building," the tour was fascinating. it was fascinating to go around and between the islands in the Ij river to see the unique things found therein and to hear how things are designed and why [a brief taste of the area can be found via the webiste, Amsterdam Docklands]. but the best parts are the things that can't be found on a website:
- the tour guide's shrug and look of "what were they thinking?" in response to some of the buildings [like to one very red building or the circle-shaped apartment building where the acoustics are a bit too good],
- the tree built inside a house (where the owner no longer lives),
- the questions of the where-abouts of the zoo's escaped pelican (and how long it'll remain free),
- the the artistically designed hotel rooms - where every room has its unique qualities. she recommended seeing one's room first - depending on who you're sharing the room with, it might be a bit awkward to have the location of the toilet right beside the bed...
the tour ended with our hearing about the chocolate factory/museum opening in Amsterdam within a couple of years. the person behind the factory had been looking for a place for awhile but nothing could be found [Amsterdam is rather packed]. and then he discovered an empty tunnel near Central Station that would fit perfectly. he checked with the municipality but they denied it existed. turns out the tunnel was built for the subway 20 years ago. the subway never came - and never will - and thus it was forgotten. the people i was with told me this was typical Amsterdam. [i would just call it typical bureaucracy :)] and hey, because somebody forgot about it, it'll now end up as a chocolate museum instead of a dark abyss for parking/losing your bike :)
i'm looking forward to going with my bike through the islands in order to explore the different buildings and look for all of the unique things packed into the limited space that makes up Amsterdam.
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