Ciao LEVS!

Last day of work today. Last days are always weird. I still haven't come to terms with the fact that I won't be going back there. Everything today felt normal, but off.

Does this look familiar?

Well, maybe not to many people, but to ME it does!! Today at work someone showed me a commercial on youtube that featured the office. It's a commercial for job placements and they used LEVS' office to film a portion of it. The segment from 0:13 - 0:21 is at LEVS!! Click HERE to watch on youtube.

It was snowing today! Today has been the most difficult for biking. Lots of snows to plow through, and it was quite icey. It was funny - I was walking to the model station today and saw 3 of the senior architects standing at the window, all completely amazed by the 5cm of snow on the ground! I guess I'm used to it. I'm Canadian!

Going out for dinner and drinks tonight with some of the interns. I'm going to miss them :(

O Holland

Amsterdam... my home away from home for 4 months

I sure will miss this beautiful city!

I got these facts in an email from my good friend Jeff a few months ago...

• When you land at Schiphol Airport, you are actually four meters below sea level. 
  
  
• A quarter of the Netherlands is below sea level.
  
  
• The Dutch are the world experts on keeping back the water / sea from over running their country and turning it into another Atlantis. During the hurricane Katrina disaster it was the Dutch the USA government turned to for help on how to repair the levies in New Orleans.
  
  
• The Netherlands has more than 4,000 km of navigable rivers, lakes and canals.
  
  
• Holland was one of the six founding members of the European Union.
  
  
• Amsterdam has 70 glass-topped canal boats.
  
  
• The name Amsterdam comes from the combination of the river Amstel and the Dam that was built on it in order to found the original village know today as Amsterdam.
  
  
• Amsterdam has over 300 coffee shops which can legally sell up to 5 grams of soft drugs to each person.
  
  
• Amsterdam boasts more museums of any city in the world, measured per square meters. 
  With over 70 major well know museums in Netherlands of which over 40 are in Amsterdam.
  
  
• 75% of the entire worlds flower bulb production comes from Netherlands
  
  
• Over 70% of the world's bacon (poor pigs) comes from the Netherlands
  
  
• Holland has around a thousand original still working windmills
  
  
• Holland has three times as many bikes as people Holland has over 15,000 km of bicycle lanes
  
  
• Holland and the Netherlands is the same country
  
  CLARIFICATION: thank you to Adrienne for her thoughtful insight. "Holland" is not technically the proper name for the Netherlands. However (wikipedia tells us) "Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The term Holland is frequently used to refer to the whole of the Netherlands. This usage is generally accepted but nevertheless unofficial."
  
  
  Holland... Netherlands... whichever... boy will I miss it!!

It's been an amazing amazing 4 months. Done lots. Seen lots. Met lots of people. I'm also happy to be going home to see my wonderful family. Wouldn't want to spend Christmas with anyone else =)

O Canada, here I come! 5 days...

GO LEVS!

LEVS - Public Prize of the Dutch Architect of the Year!!

This weekend the ArchitectenWeb Dutch Architect of the Year Awards were given out. LEVS Architecten won the Audience Award!! 

Click HERE to view the news on the LEVS website.

Click HERE to view on ArchitectenWeb.

There's Marianne, Jurriaan and Adriaan accepting the award.

This poster is currently proudly hanging in our office =)

Thank you for everyone who supported LEVS!

I fly home in a week. A little ironic, I'm actually watching a documentary on TV right now - it's about a plane crash of an Air Ontario flight. 29 people died. Oh my, perhaps I shouldn't be watching this!

Mappin' it out

Amsterdam

Click on the map to view larger image

This is sort of a map of my life in Amsterdam!! Haha I tried to put all the main places I go to on this map. My apartment is pretty much in the best location possible, right in the centre of everything.

Centraal Station is located on the North side of the city, and all the roads and canals are centered around the station. There is one main street (Damrack) that runs directly between Dam Square and Centraal Station. All international trains, as well as trains to the airport leave from Amsterdam Centraal.

LEVS is located on the Eastern Docklands, across from Borneo Sporenburg. On a good day (not too cold or snowy) it usually takes me about 20 minutes to bike to work (LEVS) so that kind of gives you an idea of how close everything is!!! I pass the Artis Zoo everyday on my way to work. It used to smell real bad, but fortunately, I think the cold weather has been able to mask the smell. I've only been in the zoo once, which was part of the Museum Nacht event.

Bob's Youth Hostel and Shelter City Hostel were where I stayed at before I found a place to live.

Nieuwmarkt and Dam Square are two main open public squares that often are host to markets and events, such as the night when Jaewoo and I went on those super fun rides at Dam Square.

Leidseplein is a great area for shopping and currently has a mini Christmas market and skating rink. There are many pubs around that area.

Sint Nicolaaskerk is the Dutch/Spanish church I used to go to until I found Blessed Trinity, an English speaking parish. Blessed Trinity is about a 25 minute bike ride South-East of my apartment (just off the map).

If you draw a triangle between Dam Square, my apartment and Centraal Station, that area (roughly) makes up the well-known Red Light District. Shelter City (my second hostel) was located in the heart of the Red Light District. A bit ironic to have a Christian hostel there.

---

 Just over a week until I fly home. I have had the most amazing 4 months in Europe. I love Amsterdam. Yesterday I biked around Amsterdam for a couple hours. I'm going to miss this city!

This is down at Leidseplein

Christmas is coming =)

Architects are useful

While waiting for Google Sketchup to download at work yesterday, I googled images of "Funny Architect"...

Just thought I'd share that =)

A Day in Utrecht

 Yesterday I took the day off work to go visit Utrecht with Jaewoo and Nicolo who works with Jaewoo. Utrecht is about a 30 minute train ride South-East of Amsterdam. I seem to have a lot of pictures of Jaewoo sleeping...

This is Utrecht Centraal Station

First place we visited was The Schröder House. It was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rieveld for Mrs. Truus Schröder and her three children. Some of the photo credit goes to Jaewoo who stole my camera for a good chunk of the day.

 We toured the inside, but we couldn't take pictures.

 Sidewalks were SO icey

Then we visited Centraal Museum and the Dick Bruna Huis, home of a collection of the famous Dutch bunny character.

We also visited Utrecht University. This is inside the library. The library is so cool - every floor has a completely different layout and they have all kinds of different study areas throughout the building. 

Peaking in on a lecture

Outside of the university

Inside the medical building  

Good day, but I seem to have caught a cold. NOT cool. 

Dank je wel Sinterklaas!

Sinterklaas visited LEVS!!!

Sunday was Sinterklaas (December 5). Sinterklaas is the occasion where the Dutch celebrate St. Nicholas, different from December 25 where they celebrate the birth of Christ. I guess in North American we just mush the two into one occasion, Christmas.

That chocolate is almost gone. I've been munching on it all day today and yesterday at work. Last night Jaewoo and I went to dinner at a restaurant we've passed several times and always talked about going to; Cafe de Jaren.

Hi Jaewoo =)

Every picture I took of the restaurant had this person in the way...

...and I mean every picture.

 Back at home

 

Here is the view from my office today. It was a little foggy this morning. And a little dark tonight.

 There's Borneo Sporenburg from across the water.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off to visit Utrecht with Jaewoo and his workie buddies :)