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.
At last, after a long sound sleep, the 11th edition of DamoClash is a fact! The comeback is as it should be: on a huge squatted terrain, away from the hectic city-life.
After several festivals at a.o. Afrika, OT301 and the Stubnitz, DamoClash got back together with some old friends to celebrate the bankruptcy of the capitalist system! With fluctuating beer prices, burning banks, their own crisis management and money-printing on demand they will try to create an alternative monetary society.
This time the festival will take place at the squatted ADM. On its huge terrain at the Western Docks, filled with creative minds who have been living there since 1997, an old fashioned explosion of music, poetry, installations, film and theater will see the light of day and the dark of night.
Although the program is never static or certain in any sense, on the left is a preliminary list of artists.
And do not forget: You are DamoClash too! So bring your paint-bombs, bad poetry and godforsaken ideals and spread them around at will amongst the visitors! Jump on the open stage, run around like a bunny or give a speech on the relevance of Emma Goldman in todays society! … or just dress up as a short-seller…
See you there and then!
the Damo- and ADM-Crew
23. May, 16:00 – 04:00 The ADM area – Hornweg 6, Amsterdam
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 (por 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..
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 comes from the desire of a better world through a more conscious tourism. This blog will guide you to the unexpected and most hidden part of Amsterdam, beyond the Coffeeshops and the Red Light District.
If you are coming to Amsterdam, consider to pay a visit to livingamsterdam.com to book your hotel. You will support our project as well.
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