Located on the northern banks of the IJ, NDSM – Werf is an old shipyard transformed in an underground cultural center at the end of the 90′s, when a group of artists, theater people, skaters and architects, known as Kinetisch Noord, approached the city council with a plan to redevelop the place.
The area host the NDSM hall, a hangar of 20,000 sq. meters, and two historic ship reused for housing workshops and artists’ studios. The aim of the project, in fact, is to offer facilities for artistic disciplines, small crafts and independent organization and a place for exhibitions, try-outs, performances, festival and parties. In total there are 10,000 sq. meters of workshops, a 2,000-sq. meter skate park, 4,200 sq. meters for other youth activities and 6,000 sq. meters of exhibition and theater space.
You can easily go there by taking the free ferry in front of the central station.
It has been opened in 1893 as a Jewish Market who has been closed in 1941 with the Jews persecutions. Reopened like a general bazaar after the War, during the ‘60 become an important node for the hippy’s scene and the youth culture in general.
Today is one of the most funny and interesting outdoor bazaar with 300 stand where you can find any kind of products: clothes (new and second hand), electronic, books, dvd’s and cd’s, posters, tools, souvenirs, bric-a-brac, curiosities.
Open from Monday to Saturday (9 a.m. – 5.30 p.m.) is located in Waterlooplein, 1011 PG Amsterdam, just 10 minutes walking from Dam square direction east, close to the Rembrandt house.
How to arrive there:
Tram: 1, 2, 5, 13 from Magna Plaza or 14 from Central Station (stop: Stadhuis)
October 9, 2009 at 10:24 pm · Written by tokyorama · Filed under Eating, Socializing
Tired of spending lots of money in junk food? Are you fed up with kebabs or vlaamse frites? Do you want to socialize with nice people?
So, all you need is a VoKu.
VoKu stands for Volks Küche, a German expression that means ‘People’s Kitchen’. A VoKu is a place where you can have healty vegetarian (or sometimes even vegan) meal for a little damage, and a good occasion to meet interesting Amsterdammers. Many squats and social centers across the city organize weekly VoKus. Here’s a partial list.
De Peper at OT301 – every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday
Remember that the Dutch eat early and generally the vokus start at 7 pm. Don’t be late and remember to reserve your dinner in time, calling the phone numbers you’ll find on each website.
September 9, 2009 at 10:38 pm · Written by Michele · Filed under Bicycles, Recycle, Shopping
Who lives in Amsterdam knows how useful is to have a bike.
If you want to buy a new bike, you could pay up to 600 euro.
Stolen bikes (also known as Junkie Bikes) cost between 5 and 25 Euros, but it is not so politically correct to support the black market of stolen bikes.
In Spuistraat 84 you can find Vitor in his shop: Recycled bikes. www.recycledbicycles.org
At Recycled Bikes you can fix your bike as well as buy second hand bikes.
Vitor is a portuguese guy from Lisbon.
He combines old bike parts with new ones for building the bikes that he sells at his shop.
Remember that, when you fix your bike there, they don’t ike to replace pieces unless it is really necessary. At recycled bikes they always try to fix what is fixable. Less waste!
If you need a bike fix, Recycled bikes is cheap, fast, and the people there are always patient and kind.
Hi there, if you like LP’s records, I suggest a visit to this shop where you can find every music genre and a collection of 20 thousands vinyl records. Cheap prices and nice atmosphere, you can spent few hours listening records and looking for good bargain.
Second Life Music is located in Prinsegracht 366 and open everyday from 1 to 6 o’clock in the afternoon.
If you arrive in Amsterdam and the sun is shining you should consider yourself a very very lucky person. Hence forget that you are a tourist and act as an Amsterdammer. How? Just enjoy every sunny second! A good way of doing it is relaxing in the parks:
The famous and central Vondelpark, with its film museum and nice bars on the water:
Westerpark with statues in the lakes and the former Gas-Fabriek: an industial building turned in bar and cinema.
The Movies is the oldest movie theater in use in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in the world.The first film presentation was given, in fact, in October 11th 1912 when the cinema was called the “Tavenu”, one screen with more then 200 seats. It was closed just two years later and was opened again after a year with the name of “Cinema Hollandia”. Since then it slowly decayed for several reason until the 50’s when it was restored as a ’second run’ theater, since it close again at the end of the 60’s. In the 70’s Pieter Goedings, a true art film-loving projectionist at De Uitkijk, bought the Hollandia and renovated it with the art deco interiors we can still enjoy today.
Located at the end of Harlemmerdijk, about 20 minutes walk from the Dam Square, with four auditorium and almost 400 seats, The Movies is mainly an Arthouse Cinema, or an “author cinema” with a palimpsest of selected no commercial movies. By the way there is a diverse mix of titles accessible for the audience and special festival programs.
Inside the place there is also a cafè/restaurant, “the Movies Wild Kitchen”, where is possible to consume a nice dinner or just chill out at the bar before or after the movie, having a nice relaxing chat with your friends.
Good belgium beers, french and italians wine, nice and friendly staff and the art deco interiors make the place cozy and pleasant.
Prices are not so cheap but regular for Amsterdam’s cinemas and cafe. If you think to stay a bit longer in the city you can buy the strippenkart movies, ten entrance for 65 euro, a not personal card you can share with your friends (for a maximum of four tickets for show) and the filmdiner (dinner + movie) from 27 euro for person.
For reservations call: 6386016 or visit the page on the web.
If you like good beers I suggest to pay a visit also to “De Bierkoning”, a beer shop behind the Dam where you can find almost 1000 thousand different beers from all around the world:”We pride ourselves in having the largest selection of beers in the world. We don’t try to have as many different brands as possible, we simply try to have the best ones, world-wide.”
At the moment I’m in love
with lambic and belgium beers in general, but there are a lot more.
Interesting alternative people use to drop by there around 5/6 o’clock p.m. so you can also meet someone to ask for some tips for your journey or just enjoy your passion for nice beers with friendly people.
Sitting on a crate of beers outside in the sun I met a beautiful “butterfly” some weeks ago..
May 3, 2009 at 12:56 pm · Written by tokyorama · Filed under dutch culture
The Netherlands are a small country, but they present many unique cultural features compared to other European nations. Holland have a most peculiar wet territory, and the Dutch have learned through centuries how to live and how to manage it on a technical and political level. Holland was also a country of sailors and merchants, and many different cultures merged.
This series is meant to provide you practical tools in dealing with basic cultural glitches you will sure experience during your visit in the Low Lands.
The first cultural shock that a foreigner coming to the Netherlands have to face is related to the particular form of Dutch toilet vases.
The traditional Dutch toilet is shaped in a way that the user’s wastes are collected in a risen, dry shelf or plateau in the back side of the vase.
Dutch people, of course, claim that this system is the best one compared to other toilet models, and they could provide many technical reasons to demonstrate their arguments:
A plateau is very useful for studying waste, which can come in handy, especially with children. The second reason is equally practical: the shallow flusher does not spalsh back on the user’s buttocks [1]
Others argue that the Dutch, “if they can’t see land above water, they’re not happy” [2]. Despite being tongue-in-cheek, this statement grabs a deeper motivation for understanding the Dutch toilet morphology: toilet is a product of a precise cultural and semiotic code. Listen to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, on toilets and Ideology.
These wonderful birds are the real citizens of this city. They are everywhere. Take your bike for a daily ride and watch them having a meeting in Vondelpark (where the usually discuss about foreign policy and coffee shops), along the river Amstel where they love to have water-picnic or into a painting of Willem Maris.
You can ignore them, think they don’t care you but this is not true! They miss you when you go back to your country inside that enormous duck called Transavia or KLM or whatever! Two weeks ago I risked my life for two of them: a mother with her baby duck were crossing a big street located in west Amsterdam: I parked my bike right away and I blocked the traffic. A dutch man smiled to me from his car: my mission was accomplisced. And… maybe you don’t believe… but I did the same thing in the highway A4 near Delft: I saved a mother with 6 chicks. But this is another story.
Anyway, in Amsterdam you will mainly find four different subfamilies of ducks or anatidae:
LivingAmsterdam.com comes from the desire of a better world through a more conscious tourism. This blog will guide you to the unforeseen and hidden part of Amsterdam, beyond the Coffeeshops and the Red Light District. RSS feed
RSS feed 
