Members of the RoGBC team participated in a “Sustainability in Architecture” conference organized by the Dutch Embassy and SenterNovem.  The full day event was attended by 150 people and featured presentations by Ambassador Jaap Werner, Secretary of State Razvan Murgeanu of the Ministry of  Regional Development and Housing, H.E. Laszlo Borbely of the Chamber of Deputities, prominent architects, energy efficiency experts and academics.  See agenda.

Steve Borncamp presented the contributions of the RoGBC member companies during his presentation entitled “Breaking the Circle of Blame in Romania” and moderated a panel discussion on “Competitiveness through Sustainability”.

There is something about a shiny red bike. It doesn’t even have to be shiny really. Biking on the wall around the city of Xi’an was really cool and the first bike ride in years. I’m an advocate of helmets, but it was my first time riding with my hair in the wind and it was a wonderful 13.7 km stretch. I would like to go to the Netherlands and study and hang out and bike around cities that have really funky and progressive and creative infrastructure (and architecture, featured in the New York Times magazine several weeks ago, on cities). I hope whenever I get to go, my imagination doesn’t let me down.

[Old Dutch - Batavus (Canada)]

Windmills!

Of course, the first ones I see from the train window as we travel from Amsterdam to Haarlem are not quite what I had in mind –

But in Haarlem – at last!

Still, the only tulips I see are cut and in water. This frustrates me, and I am beginning to understand that after the hunger winter, when people had no food and lived on tulip bulbs, that this country decided it never wanted to see a tulip again… which is why they gave them all to Ottawa. It wasn’t really to thank them for seeing to the birth of their now-queen, or to thank them for liberating them in WWII. They wanted the friggin things gone. And it worked – Ottawa has 70000000 tulips, and as far as I have seen, Holland has none. When we get home on Sunday it will be smack in the middle of Ottawa’s Tulip Festival. 

So, we travel to Haarlem, to get to Heemstede (which is where both of Rudi’s parents were raised, I later learn – after shooting 100 photos of Haarlem!).

There are bikes at the station, because many, if not most, people make their way into Amsterdam for work,  20-minute commute.

Always a sea of bicycles. The difference I see in Haarlem – they are not all locked up, as they are in Amsterdam.

And I saw some nice transport for babies -

This bike has the more traditional seat in front, with the Winnie the Pooh toy, and a nice windscreen and lower windblock. Nice!

But this is the frontal version, which is also pretty cool -

I thought it important to try to capture the interesting buildings that are built leaning forward. This is to help get things into the windows of the top floors, the stairways being about 2′ wide and steeper than the Himalayas. Almost as tall, too. And they are great fun to climb, I might add, on your way back to your apartment after six hours of walking around Amsterdam.

But I digress. The buildings on the right are build leaning forward. Check it out.

We got into the centre square of Haarlem, and decided to enjoy some lunch.

My lunch is in the foreground – a lovely salad topped with goat cheese, smothered in honey and nuts. Yum! And Rudi’s is the salad with roast beast. And in this country it is always served very gorgeously rare!

We did not have hering. It is fresh from the sea, comes only once a year and Rudi has been waiting for it all week. It is here – but we were full and, knowing that, once we had arrived at his aunt’s and uncle’s house, they’d feed us… we will save it for another day (though today, Friday, it is raining).

And we got to Tante Riet’s and Om Hermann’s. Not easily – we were to take the bus from the edge of Haarlem right into Heemstedte, but the busses decided to have a one-day strike! So we called a taxi, which took a long time to arrive since they were the only other form of transport.

We drove by Rudi’s mom’s and dad’s houses, or what we thought was Rudi’s dad’s. Because his grandfather was an architect who designed many homes, we had a nice tour through one he had designed and built (in a group of five), but it was not the one Rudi’s dad had grown up in! So we may make another trip by to see the house if there is time.

Tante Riet is one of Rudi’s dad’s younger sisters. 

And her husband is the great Dutch painter, Van Tongeren (Hermann).

http://www.hvantongeren.nl/

Here, he is going through a retrospective for us, through all of the periods in his artistic life to date. He is truly a genius, unique among all. His art has dynamism, and movement and life!

Rudi’s idea of fun is walking 100000 hours a day. My calves feel like stone, by feet ache. The skin on my pinkie toes is rubbed off.

Yesterday we had our first visit downtown to the shopping area, the red light district (not too busy during daylight hours) and the main tourist areas.

The canals are lovely, though not Abaco blue at all! Murky greenish brown perhaps?

Um, in Amsterdam you wouldn’t go to a coffee house for coffee. You’d go to a cafe. 

Coffee shops sell a variety of substances, different varieties of marijuana and mushrooms!

And this is considered a sandwich – friend cheese on a bun. Rudi says the Dutch put everything on a bun.

This bar is in the red light district. It wasn’t open since we were there in the daytime… not that we are curious about what women can do with bananas!

These are the bicycle taxis -

And if we ever get motorcycles again, mine will definitely be this one!

Here’s a store downtown:

Wonder what more there possibly could be!

And one more for today – one of the few remaining traditional wooden Dutch homes (most were lost to one of several serious fires in a 30-year period):

Now, my feet and I are going to rest for a bit, just overnight, and then I guarantee we will be walking around Amsterdam for hours and hours again on Tuesday! Pray for me.