Wall-O-Cheese

Its just another quaint little neighborhood shop on the corner (Kaasland!)......

........only it has a Wall of Cheese!

Friets: it's whats for dinner

For some strange reason, french fries are standard fare here in Amsterdam. It must be the Mayo that makes the Dutch french fry so different. Or maybe its because the fries aren't cooked in the same oil as the Chicken McNuggets, Filet-O-Fish, Buffalo Ranch McChicken, or the McGriddle Cakes. 

the weed paradox

[as if you didn't know, we are talking about Amsterdam] 
Cannabis in all its forms (marijuana, hashish, hash oil) is legal under condition of so called "personal use". Smoking of cannabis even in public, is not prosecuted and neither is selling it, although these activities are technically illegal under the still valid Opium Act. However, this practice is widely tolerated provided that it happens in a limited, controlled way (in a "coffee shop", 5 grams maximum transaction, not many portions in stock, sale only to adults, no advertisement of drugs, etc.). Large scale growing, processing and trading in marijuana is still forbidden as in any other country, but the penalties given by the courts are much lower than abroad.

But, the Dutch have not solved the question of the controlled supply of cannabis. While large-scale growth and trade of marijuana is forbidden and prosecuted, the question remains how the "coffee shops" all over the country can obtain their supplies within this law.

Heck if I know.......maybe Fedex from Denver, or Portland? 

photo copyright by somebody, whatever

coffee shop

In Amsterdam there is a distinction between "coffee shop" and coffee shop. 

A "coffee shop" sells marijuana and you can sit in the coffee shop and actually drink coffee while you consume your marijuana. The coffee is way secondary to the consumption of weed part. I am sure you can find locals in these shops, but primarily you will find tourists. Most representative of tourist is a group of guys wandering around looking for the right kind of coffee shop.

A coffee shop is just what is implies- you come in and buy coffee, and sit and drink coffee.

Its real easy to tell the difference between the two. If you don't smell weed, then its a coffee shop.......

not a "coffee shop"!

Bar truck!

seen at yet another market event....this one at Westerpark the first Sunday of the month.

did I mention bikes?

According to the data below, there is a nearly 1 to 1 ratio of people to bikes in the Netherlands. This means that there are 85,000 bikes in central Amsterdam.......this also means that you are more likely to get run down by a bicycle than any other form of transportation in the city. 

Netherlands

• People: 16,652,800
• Bicycles: 16,500,000
• Cyclists: ~99.1%

In the Netherlands 27% of all trips and 25% of trips to work are made by bike. The average distance cycled per person per day is 2.5 km. Holland and bicycles go together like bread and jam. Despite the recession the cycle-happy Dutch are still spending a lot of money on their bicycles – nearly 1 billion euros’ worth a year. About 1.3 million bicycles were sold in the Netherlands in 2009, at an average price of 713 euros ($1,008) each. Amsterdam (the capital and largest city of the Netherlands) is one of the most bicycle-friendly large cities in the world. It has 400 km of bike lanes and nearly 40% of all commutes in Amsterdam are done on bike. Strangely, most cyclists don’t wear helmets. And bike theft is a big problem, with about one of five (20%) bicycles being stolen each year.

source:  http://top10hell.com/top-10-countries-with-most-bicycles-per-capital

one boat

Oops, don't see this very often in a canal. Sunk outboard. Maybe somebody out on the Tennessee River in Alabama got a little off course when heading home.

 

crookedy

Amsterdam is the home of crooked buildings of all shapes and sizes. There is a fine line here.....the buildings are either quaint or terrifying, depending on the level of your structural knowledge. And there is indeed an underlying structural problem.....there are hundreds of thousands of wood pilings that support buildings in much of central (old) Amsterdam. If these pilings remain below the water line, no problem. It is only when the top of wood pilings are above water that they begin to deteriorate, and thus cause subsidence of a building they support. This is an ongoing problem, and there are many construction firms that specialize in foundation renovation.

Right down the street. The leaning house at the corner of Brouwersgracht and Binnen Oranjestraat dates from about 1650.

It gets crazier:  not only are there crooked houses; many of the older houses actually lean slightly outward toward the street. This has been done intentionally to allow a hoist at the top of the building to have clearance at street level. Most older buildings have a hoist to haul heavy items to upper floors, because, you can't get that new IKEA sofa up those narrow steep stairs.

couple of boats

weed boat
Not that kind of weed, but actual weeds and vines growing on this boat. Notice the nice astro-turf deck!

House boat
Literally a house in a canal. Don't have any land? No problem. Just float in a platform and start building

Noorderkerk.......

It's right down the street, or specifically across the gracht.....a 17th-century Protestant church.

The church was built in the years 1620–1623 to serve the rapidly growing population of the new Jordaan neighbourhood. 

The Jordaan already had a church, the Westerkerk, but the city government decided that a second church should be built to serve the northern part of the neighborhood (the 'northern' part of the neighbor hood is like 8 blocks from the 'southern' part). 

The Noorderkerk became the church for the common people, while the Westerkerk was used mainly by the middle and upper classes. 

sounds kind of familiar.