Skywatch Friday and some prose

Click to enlarge.

More pictures? Check my Flickr page

My regular English blog is here.

Every SWF-picture published here is shot with my trusty Google Pixel 7 smartphone and unedited, unless stated otherwise.

 

For more Skywatch Friday photo's from around the globe, please check http://skyley.blogspot.com/

=================================

A friend and I decided to meet up for a chat and a beer. At an Irish bar around halfway her place and mine. Because of some rerouting it would have taken me some 40 minutes to get there by public transport so I decided it was a nice day for a 35 minute walk. Mostly through downtown Amsterdam.

Here's the old main post office where my grandmother used to work. It was one of the last buildings with a working paternoster, a perpetuous elevator. Now it's Magna Plaza, a (failed) shopping mall.

The main shopping street in Amsterdam is Kalverstraat. Usually packed with tourists and not a local in sight. 

A view of Dam Square, very near the origin of the city where some 1000 years ago a dam was built in the Amstel river...'Amstelredamme' (dam over Amstel') became 'Amsterdam'. 

On the other side of Dam square is the old city hall that replaced the wooden structure that became a victim of Amsterdam's Great Fire of 1452. There had been another one in 1321 and after two great fires the Amsterdammers had enough and using stone instead of wood to build became the standard. Only two wooden houses from the early 1500s remain. 

City Hall was used by Napoleon's brother when the French took The Netherlands. Apparently King Louis was a good king who renamed City Hall to Royal Palace, learned Dutch and earned karma points be accidentally proclaiming himself Rabbit of Holland, mispronouncing the Dutch word for 'Koning' and saying 'Konijn'. 

The old postoffice seen from the front. With the Royal Palace on the left and the church where our current king and queen got married on the right.

Leaving city center and looking at the Wester church

On my walk I passed quite a few canals. Here's one.

===============================

Today's poem is about dreams:

Before me (a #poem)

The road ahead

is paved with shards of dreams

Not all mine

but dreams nonetheless

Am I pursuing my own dreams,

dreaming that I am

or simply following

the dreams

of those who went 

before me?

In Facebook zijn niet alle plaatjes te zien (of te horen) en links in mijn artikelen niet aan te klikken. Klik daarom op de oorspronkelijke link. http://terrebel.blogspot.nl/ Veel leesplezier! O ja, fans kunnen mijn Fan pagina leuk vinden. https://www.facebook.com/TerrebelAuthortainer

Over links gesproken: ja, dat ben ik maar voor verdieping staat er ook een aantal in mijn stukjes. Heb daar wat moeite voor genomen dus stel het op prijs als u de moeite neemt er op te klikken om de betreffende artikelen, onderzoeken en filmpjes te bekijken.

Heeft u na het lezen van dit blogstuk iets geleerd, wat gelachen of heeft het u aan het denken gezet, overweegt u dan een donatie voor de tijd en moeite die ik er in steek.

Meer lezen? Mijn boeken