Living the retirement dream

We are sharing our ideal retirement experiences.

Amsterdam with Kelly

Kelly O’Connor is the daughter of Neil and Audrey and has visited us once before in Mexico City. Since visiting us in CDMX she has become a Board Certified Dermatologist and is now living in the South End of Boston and is working in a dermatology office in Norwood. She is as much of a pre-planner as her mother and has already booked three restaurants for us to try.

Helene departs at 11:04 am with a sweet wave goodbye.
Kelly O’Connor arrives at 12:37pm with a big smile and a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Other than overlapping house guests, this is the quickest turnover time that we can remember.
After we gave Kelly a tour of our accommodations we walked to the Central train station to take a ferry to NDSM which is a former shipyard and neighborhood in the Amsterdam-Nord area. The name of the area comes from a former company that use to build and repair ships by the dock, called Nederlandsche Dog en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij. Now that is a Dutch mouthful !
View of the Botel Hotel in Amsterdam North which is Amsterdam’s one of a kind floating hotel. They float everything here.
View from the ferry ride of the Lookout Swing and a very very long cruise ship and the White building that looks like a flying saucer is a museum of Dutch cinema.
NDSM Wharf is an enormous cultural hotspot with a vibrant artist community and ever expanding variety of bars and restaurants.
It is one of the best spots for graffiti and street art in the city. With grounds exceeding the size of ten football fields, the area hosts multi-disciplinary festivals, performances, exhibitions and a wide range of other events in a unique, post industrial surrounding. We were so happy that Kelly invited us to go with her as we never would have discovered it otherwise.
MAKE ART NOT €.
Our primary destination here was STRAAT which is a museum for street art and graffiti. The current exhibition displays more than 180 artworks by 170+ artists. The artworks were created on site and most of these mind blowing visual experiences are as big as outdoor walls. The museum resides in 8,000 square meters of a former warehouse on the wharf. It is absolutely fabulous to see and we got in free with our museum kaart that we purchased weeks ago.
The museum provides context and information beside each artwork. Almost all of these works are done with spray paint.
We have assembled a series of some of our favorites in order for you to get to know the stories that remain untold in the streets.
We hope you enjoy the following art selections with information below each piece.
We have been to this exact spot when we lived in Tokyo last spring.
As you can see these artists came here from all over the world to create this street art.
Blue Delftware from a local artist.
This is from a Mexican artist and we thought it made a powerful statement, sorry we did not get a photo of the info. We never saw the wall when we lived in Mexico.
Of course this was a favorite of ours.
This one titled “Little Red Riding Hood” was so amazing. Click on the video below then read about it.
Who ever knew Arthur Miller felt that way about Marilyn Monroe.
Yup this is the weather that greeted us as we exited the museum.
As you can see in this video It was a scramble getting on the ferry to leave.
Amsterdam street art.
That evening Kelly took us to Mana Mana an amazingly delicious restaurant that serves Middle eastern dishes meant to be shared. This is the first of her three reservations in Amsterdam.

Thank you Kelly for these special 24 hours that we shared with you before your parents arrived. We now have a greater appreciation for graffiti and street art thanks to you.

Living our retirement dream

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2 responses to “Amsterdam with Kelly”

  1. Mark Neylon Avatar
    Mark Neylon

    Such colorful art! The north side of Amsterdam looks so interesting and edgy!

    Reply
  2. PEGGY SCOTT Avatar
    PEGGY SCOTT

    What a fascinating day of amazing “street art”….the Europeans have embraced this form of art so well.

    Reply

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