Amsterdam

NEMO Science Centre

Posted on October 1, 2012October 1, 2012 by ghotiindustries

We finally made it! I’ve been wanting to go to Nemo since I first read about it months ago while sitting at my office desk in Sydney. On a brisk and blustery day in Autumn, here we found ourselves…

… walking towards the most amazing building. Built to look like a sinking ship, above the entrance to the IJ tunnel.

The entrance is presided over by the water clock. Unsurprisingly, it’s quite hypnotic …

There’s a ball machine reminiscent of the one at Questacon. Until you watch it for a while and realise that it’s a representation of a factory floor and you can follow the day’s orders for different coloured balls!

There’s a good display of alternative energy transportation that has been utilised within the Netherlands over the years.

This Robot’s name was Elektra, and she would greet and converse with you. She is 3.5m tall and has hydraulic, water pump muscles, which cycle 500 litres of water through her arteries every hour.

There was an amusing “teen” section which was set up to answer all sort of questions teenagers might not be comfortable asking their parents. (in wonderful Dutch fashion)

There was a wonderful section which analysed some of the various ways in which humans adorn and decorate their bodies.

Over 5 floors, and with regular shows, there was plenty to see and do for a number of hours.

It was a wonderful Museum. All in all though, not as large or as well thought out for a range of ages as either Questacon or the Powerhouse.

But there was a two-headed monkey in a jar.

So there’s that.

The continuing story …

Posted on September 24, 2012September 24, 2012 by ghotiindustries

In today’s exciting episode, we find our Heros under a mound of boxes and ex-packing material. In order to make this post a little more interesting, we will bring you instead some photos from around Amsterdam.

The first in our selection is a vivid depiction of just how they retrieve the masses of bicycles stolen every day, from the bottom of the canals. It’s a spectator sport.

In an era when property tax was based on how much street frontage you had, everyone wanted the narrowest property possible! I think I’ve found a contender for narrowest house! Yes, that door in the middle has it’s own street number, it isn’t a part of the properties on either side.

Amsterdam has some of the most wonderful street art I’ve seen, and I am hoping to fill an entire post for you. In the mean time, here’s one I spotted as I was giving a friend the grand tour of our fair city last week.

As I stated above, we have been unpacking and settling in. For us this includes the purchase of a new cat post for the fur-kids to enjoy. They have really been missing this in the past few months. We got a new one in the post last week and then spent a fun hour putting it up.

It was obvious that they’d missed having something to climb, as they were all over it and “helping” us build it, as the post was being put together!

We have had a few backyards since moving over here, but now I’d like to show you where we’ve settled. A good mix of town and country!

Being us, we are still in the process of identifying which of the local cafes has the best coffee and service. The one we were in today is a top contender! Their Croque Monsieur was delicious!

Hopefully by next post I’ll be set up enough to have gone on an adventure which I can tell you all about! See you all soon!

Progress

Posted on September 19, 2012September 19, 2012 by ghotiindustries

It’s been a long couple of weeks. It began with meeting the movers who would reunite us with all our stuff. Now, the building we are in has a hook, but it isn’t able to be used. (Long story). So we had an elevator. A platform which is put together on the street which they pile all your stuff in to bring it in through the window because the stairs are too narrow.

Like so.

This worked really well for everything except the King Size Mattress. It didn’t fit in the window OR up the stairs. We’ve been on an air mattress, and have had to order two single mattresses to counter this … adventure.

Then we brought the rest of our stuff from the interim apartment in a car we’d rented, and were finally home.

As we settled in, we began filling in some of the more obvious gaps in our possessions. We were finally able to buy ourselves an espresso machine like we’ve been planning on for the last 5 years!!!

We had a brief but wonderful trip to Zwolle to catch up with family and have a “Mum-cooked-meal” down on the farm.

There has also been brief sanity trips to knit night to get away from the boxes and packing material.

That in a nut shell wraps it up.

Nothing huge has been going on since the move, just lots of furniture tetris trying to figure out which layout suits everything the best. There is a sore back from the air mattress. There are kittens who are exploring the new uncharted territory of a balcony. And there will be a more exciting post next week wen I have a little more time to wander around with my new camera!

Unpacking

Posted on September 17, 2012 by ghotiindustries

Hi All! Sorry for the radio silence. When we moved I didn’t have any posts scheduled, and we’re still in the process of unpacking the internet.

I should be more organised in the next couple of days though and will have a proper post for you then.

Amsterdam. Level, Property Ownership; ACHIEVED!!!

Posted on September 3, 2012September 3, 2012 by ghotiindustries

That’s right! Not only have we bought our first property, we’ve bought it in Amsterdam! We signed the paperwork on Friday and then went out for a celebratory lunch of traditional Dutch croquettes (giant bitterballen ) and frietjes.

Those of you following along on Twitter will have seen the pictures posted on Saturday of our new balcony view …

original 1930’s fireplace …

and my new shower curtain! (so very me!!!)

But on Sunday the fun really began, as we headed out furniture shopping! Now, our stuff (which we have been parted from for nearly five months now) will be arriving on Tuesday. But we left a fair whack of stuff behind for many reasons. So now, we get to replace some of it with stuff that will fit where we will now be settling in.

We began by looking at bookshelves,