If you spend enough time wandering around Dutch cities, especially in the historic centers, you might never notice a full-on shopping mall. Sure you'll find shopping streets, districts, markets... but this very familiar American style shopping mall, they're not all that common in my experience.

One place I know they have a big one is Rotterdam. So let's say you find yourself in Rotterdam, it's raining, and you happen to be longing for that shopping mall feeling - one place you could go is the Alexandrium Shopping Center.

Accessible via train, metro, car or bike, the Alexandrium boasts 474,000 square feet of every kind of shop you can think of, as well as food and drink places. Unlike American malls it is open 6 days per week and sometimes Sunday as well. The café's serve decent food, so even just as a lunch spot one can pop-in at mid-day.

As a visitor in this country, a megastore where you can buy furniture and groceries in bulk is perhaps not of great importance. But perhaps clothes, music, electronics, and specialty shops... you might just be into that. Oh and yes, it is now smoke free.

Posted by Bicyclemark at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes in the Netherlands you see the most cutting edge, futuristic, bizarro ideas become reality. So I wonder if anyone flinched when they read in the newspapers over the weekend, that the police department expects to have its first flying police cars within the next 5 years.

Flying police cars, well, its not quite a car. It is more like a little one person smart car with a propeller that can unfold and take the little car up into the sky. The idea is that with all the traffic problems on Dutch highways, police have to be able to get around more quickly and the use of helicopters is too expensive and limited as to where they can land. More commonly referred to as a gyrocopter, the first prototype will be tested in two years and the police expect to be using the first commercial version by 2012.

No where in the article do they talk about using these things in cities. Considering all the tram lines, I doubt the flying police could get far anyway.

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The long-awaited day has finally arrived. As of today, 1 July 2008, The Netherlands is officially smoke-free! At last, a night out on the town does not mean coming home saturated in cigarette smoke, coughing from the constant exposure to puffing patrons. A meal at a nice restaurant will no longer be accompanied by wafting smoke, and coffee with a friend won’t merit washing one’s hair just to remove the stink.

What a thrill. After doing some research, I’ve discovered that the smoking ban does affect coffee shops where marijuana is sold. Owners of these shops are rightly concerned about their sales. But it seems that the smoking ban applies only to tobacco and not to marijuana.

What does this mean? Here’s a guess: Tourists (and locals) will continue to visit coffee shops, but will refrain from mixing their joints with tobacco, as pure joints remain within the confines of the law. However, this may lead to an even bigger problem of overly stoned individuals roaming the streets.

Or maybe everyone will just ignore the ban. Time will tell!

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The Lokerse Feesten is on August 1-10, 2008 in Lokerse, Belgium. They’ve got a great lineup of bands, including the Sex Pistols, New York Dolls & Buzzcocks (all playing on Saturday the 2nd). Macy Gray will hit the stage on 8 August and Alanis Morissette on 10 August.

Lokeren is about a 2 ½ to 3 hour train ride from Amsterdam Centraal. They even have an overnight bar for hard-core concert-goers who don’t need sleep (or don’t want to pay for a hotel room).

Tickets for each day of the festival run between EUR 12 to 27, and a ten-day festival pass is EUR 85.

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The summer solstice has come and gone, but we've still got lots and lots of daylight and short nights to enjoy the music and festivals.

Friday:

Friday nights at the Amsterdam Arena don't usually mean Waltz, but that's the theme of the party, classical music by André Rieu; Amsterdam ArenA, 8pm, €50-€140.

The Running Birds are from France and can be seen at The Waterhole, 11pm, free.

Monte Montgomery jams at Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 8:30pm, €10 + membership.

Of all the bizarre gatherings, De Balie is having a party called club tobac. The theme, as you can tell, is smoking; Friday includes a screening of Thank You for Smoking; 8pm, 3€.

Saturday:

Holy Cow! It's Gospel Battle 2008, a whole lot of gospel singing in the battle for the top spot; De Kandelaar, 8pm, free.

Red Hot Riviera; De Nieuwe Anita, 8pm, €6.

Brooklyn's own - Papoose; Melkweg, The Max, 9pm, €22 + membership.

Sunday:

Parkpop takes place in The Hague and includes Cheryl Crow; Zuiderpark, , 1pm, free.

Ben Folds - still going! Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 9pm, €26 + membership.

Hip Hop artist Young Buck; Melkweg, The Max, 9pm., €25 + membership.

Posted by Bicyclemark at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hand made toys, nostalgic sideboards, and traditional candy are only some of the throwbacks one can find a the Winkeltje Kouwenhoven in Delft. A shop that goes all the way back to 1867, it originally specialized in chemicals, paints, glass work, as well as being a pharmacy.

Technically, having become part of the Het Prinsenhof museum in 1985, it is no longer officially a shop. But that doesn't mean you can't walk in and experience the flavors of the late 1800's and early 1900's, or even take some home with you.

The store is located on the Sint Agathaplein 3a, in the heart of beautiful Delft. Several trains per hour leave from Amsterdam Central Station to Delft, the trip takes about an hour, and costs 20 euro round trip.

Posted by Bicyclemark at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is your early heads up for a little known yet very unique event that will take place in the Amsterdam area on July 6th, 2008. It is called "Big Jump" and it involves hundreds of people, possibly like yourself, jumping into bodies of water in the name of water quality and protecting the cleanliness of our water. To reconnect people with their waterways, what better way - than to jump in them.

Big Jumps have been taking place throughout Europe for the past few years in places like Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK. This year there are several Big Jumps scheduled, in preparation for the Big Jump XXL in 2010.

To observe, or better yet, be a part of the grand leap, bring your bathing suit (or not) and head over to either the beloved Blijberg beach, or to the IJberg section of Amsterdam at the Markermeer area. There are further explanations in Dutch here. Or directly from the European wide website in English, here. Don't miss this chance, when else will you be able to say you took part in a big jump into water along with several hundred people at the same time, in the Netherlands!?

Posted by Bicyclemark at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I met an old friend for dinner a few nights ago at the restaurant Marrakech, serving authentic Moroccan food. We arrived at 7pm to find an empty restaurant, but were delighted with the cozy decorations.

The house wine was decent and served in a massive glass, and they provided us with a large pitcher of tap water without charge. After perusing a slightly confusing menu in Dutch, English, and German, I had the chicken couscous, a huge meal that I didn’t come close to finishing, but very tasty!

The prices aren’t bad and if you’re looking for a quiet Sunday dinner, this is the place. It’s located close to Dam Square at the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 134.

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The Dutch have won three games now, and face off against Russia tomorrow night in the quarterfinals. I live on a busy street, so despite my attempts to avoid watching every football game, I can’t seem to miss the celebrations on the street below me. Even a trip to the supermarket in the early morning hours reveals a country that is afflicted with an illness called Oranjekoorts.

To understand this illness, I turned to Dutch Word of the Day, the blog that has been keeping its readers up to date with the most relevant vocab for Euro 2008. They say those with "oranjekoorts suffer from increased body heat and adrenaline due to a sudden outburst of unusual patriotism and national solidarity,” and point out that this can turn into "oranjegekte," or orange madness (“the word for the behaviour and appearance of Dutch supporters, ranging from decorating your street with orange and national flags, to dressing up as an orange lion”).

Stop by the blog for a bit more football vocab, such as “Paniekvoetbal” and “Hup Holland Hup!” Maybe then you can begin to understand the madness that is currently sweeping across the Netherlands.

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I recently found myself in some corners of Schiphol airport that I had never seen before. Comfy nooks and unique spaces where some creative ideas have been put into action. And in the coming week I'll show you a few of those places and moments using video.

Today I wanted to start with a 1 minute glance of the Rijksmuseum Schiphol. Now plenty of people have heard about the big Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, one of the most important art museums in the country. But what you may not have realized is that somehow they built a little Rijksmuseum for Schiphol airport where travellers can take in some of the same beloved pieces one might also spot in the big museum. And of course, just like at the main museum, if you really like something you see on display, you can just walk downstairs to the giftshop and pick up a poster and get over to your gate in time for takeoff.

Interesting factoid that I learned while I was there: the box structure the museum is housed in, was specially built to be uneffected by the vibration of planes landing and taking off outside. In effect, it is almost like it is suspended in mid-air.

Here's that 1-minute glance of what I'm talking about.

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