August 2002
Where else?
Amsterdam looking
beautiful.
Amsterdam Centraal,
the
main train station
The inner harbor,
from where
the touristy canal boats depart.
The building to the
right
is the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
Dead center with
the white-and-green
awnings is a large hash bar, the Grasshopper.
A watery corner in
the oldest
part of town.
Walking over the
ring of
canals through the Jordaan neighborhood.
The Jordaan,
roughly demographically
equivalent to the Lower East Side in NYC.
The sign says, "Oh
Amsterdam,
how beautiful you are!"
Amsterdam has a
severe housing
shortage.
Some manage to live
in the
city by occupying stationary houseboats.
This is a
houseboat-turned-museum.
Our friends Iwan
and Lorraine
own this building in the Jordaan.
For many years Iwan
ran
the café himself but now he has a normal job.
They came with us
to Paradiso
to see Guided by Voices, and then took us back to their once
working-class
neighborhood,
De Pijp, to witness the gentrification that has taken place
there in the
last decade.
A very Dutch sea of
bikes
outside De Bijenkorf
(the Beehive),
Amsterdam's
largest department store.
The Royal Palace on
the
Dam. A protest against globalization was being set up.
De Nieuwe Kerk
(it's actually
about 700 years old), where we
saw an exhibit of
postwar
sculpture from the Stedelijk Museum.
Protest stage being
set
up in front of the ABN AMRO Bank.
The sign
reads "Trade has limits!"
