Whilst Sam and I were enjoying a lovely concert by the US National Youth Symphony inside the Concertgebouw, across the street from us on Museumplein, World (LGBTQIA+) Pride was holding a wonderfully energetic outdoor concert and celebration. I expect that, as usual, the row of flags indicates the many countries where queer folks risk imprisonment or death. In case anyone was in doubt about what kind of world we’re still living in.
Last week’s solar eclipse peaked here in Amsterdam at just about 89% coverage of sun by moon, shortly before I took this photo with my phone. Note how many people you see out enjoying the unusual event. I spent most of it ensconced in my sunroom, with my eclipse glasses on, and have shared below some highly-unprofessional shots in which I either popped the glasses over the lens so you could get a bit of a sense; or tried out the manual settings on my phone. I emerged with one strong recommendation: if an eclipse is happening near you any time soon, DO get eclipse glases in advance, and DO put them on at the time the sun starts being obscured, and keep them on. It’s a rare thing and I’ve now added eclipse chasing to my list of probable retirement pastimes. Included below are other shots once the moon had cleared and the sun continued it usual beautiful arc below the horizon.
Vondelpark’s rose garden has been lovely this year. The duck was from a stroll through earlier in the year, that I just never got around to posting :-).
The darker photos are both from February 2nd this year – so slightly more than six months ago. The sunrise photo below is from just now – took it out my living room window to show not only the lovely morning-cloud sky lights, but how big all those new buildings have grown this year! My last Urban Canals showed you the Pontsteiger Hotel as seen along one of our canals; above, if you enlarge and look to the right of the big crane, you’ll see it as I used to see it out my windows here 😦
Above, the Pontsteiger building (which is a hotel, btw) as seen from one of our canals – now that I can no longer look out my window to see it, I figured I’d show it from other perspectives. Below, a few photos showing the ongoing work to stabilize and strengthen some of the older canals in the heart of the city.
A workshop recently got me back into this newly-renovated, 1638-founded Amsterdam institution, of whose newly-remodeled greenhouses I recently shared one photo in another series. 10 (imaginary) bonus points to anyone who can guess which beloved institution in the immediate neighborhood of our office we’re showing you here. Hint: it’s one of the world’s oldest of such institutions, yet somehow never makes the cut for most of my visitors, when weighed against other even more famous Amsterdam institutions…
This particular plant truly lights up if I time my morning bike commute via Vondelpark so as to catch the moment when the rising sun first hits it, as I did on of the two days of shots you’re seeing here.
(so much world, so little time....) 