IJburg island. A design accommodation island but...

That's right. IJburg is an island very close to the mainland of North-East Amsterdam and is all nicely built from scratch. Numerous design houses, villas and blocks of apartments and a few basic shops fill the entire island. It sounds like an excellent location for family life and most of all great architectural design with huge windows.

Although its reputation is not very good. The waether there is horrible, very cold and windy. Mostly inhabitted by working class foreigners because of the surprisingly affordable prices. Also, the atmosphere is very weird, you feel like there are ghosts around. I was surprised because I had seen all those great apartments and houses on the internet and I thought that it would be great to buy one of them one day.

But it's still a mystery to me, it looks so great and tempting...

Take a look.

 Front side...

 ...and back side!

Some new photos.

I was around a couple of days ago alone with my camera. It was raining a bit but I could still ride around my bicycle and take some photos. 

 You can find that chess 'board' just 50m from Hard Rock Cafe. I liked the expression of that guy.

 The most beautiful rental bicycles in Amsterdam! 'Black fiets' (Het Zwarte Fietseplan). Much better and much more stylish than 'Yellow Bikes' and 'Mac Bikes' They are located at Lijnbaansgracht Road, almost opposite of Rijksmuseum.

 Another post-card of Amsterdam

 One of the many painted buildings around the very center of the city.

Boat houses once more!

I really had to come back to that subject as I go crazy with the idea of moving to one of those one day. My wife and I are in love with boat houses (water villas to be precise, not boats). We went around a bit, earlier today, and took some more images of nice water villas. Not a cheap solution at all as their price vary between 300.000 and 500.000 (at least these ones in the photos).

Take a look at these interesting websites to see the interior design and more info, you'll like'em too :)
http://www.woonbotenland.nl/
http://www.wirtz-visser.nl/
http://www.woonboot.nl
http://www.jaap.nl/koophuizen/Amsterdam/_/_/_/Woonboot/1/ http://www.fikkers.nl/
All the above sites are in Dutch but you may view them with Firefox and use "Google Translate" I never use PCs or any PC software but that (Google Translate) is probably the only one very useful service/feature for everyone. Search for google toolbar and download it to firefox. It does not work with Safari but when you need translation of web pages a bit of Firefox wouldn't do any harm :)

Random shots

That's right.

I have not much to share with you these days apart my craziness about boathouses! Oh yes, I'd love to live in a boathouse and might will one day soon, why not. You may all have a look at this website to get an idea of the interior-exterior design of some nice boathouses and their costs:

http://www.wirtz-visser.nl/

Some more shots as I said...

Living On the water

Amsterdam people are crazy with anything on wheels (bicycles/rollers/trolleys) and anything floating (boats of any kind and size and Boat houses). I got some shots of boat houses just to give you an idea but I will soon do a proper boat house shooting because it is a very interesting and impressive subject. I'd love to visit a boat house and stay for a while to see if it moves and if yes how much it moves :) In case it's ok for both my wife and me it would be a great accommodation alternative. Boat houses are in the heart of the city and more affordable to buy. Not sure though how much to rent one. Take a look:

These boats are carriers. They travel up to Scandinavia and at the back side people use it as a 'normal' house with their car parking too :)

This is quite impressive. It is a restaurant made on a moving canal bridge. In the evenings it closes to the right and becomes a bridge with two entrances and works as a normal restaurant with a great canal view!

DHL has floating offices like that and they make deliveries around the city!

This is very crazy! Yes, as you see it is a floating boat kids playground!!! :-)

Those bicycles came out of the waters of the canals! Drunk youngsters go crazy at night time :)

Queen's Day 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best festival I have ever attended. Extra crazy and lively but not kitsch at all! Party people and dance music everywhere. Any kind of boat full of people cruising around the canals and loads of loads of Heineken beer. I love orange and it was all around the city... all around the country actually. We saw in TV in the morning the Queen and her family walking around the Hague celebrating with people.

I can't describe the fun but you can take a look at the following photos (and video) to see what was going on yesterday 30 of April. ...and plan your next year's trip ;-)

You got to check the video above :-)

CLICK FOR A FULL VIEW - Everybody is out of the boat for a quick pee :-)

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