The walk home.

I walked home from work today, discovering areas I have not seen before. There are some cool buildings in the area where I work.

I also walked past my old school. This is where I learned my first trade: precision engineering. I loved it here and made really nice friends, some of which I still know and one of them is my best friend mic.

Another awesome building closer to my house.

I packed more boxes tonight. I need to get it moving along now...

The awesome buildings

This morning Simone had to get something from a shop in the South of the Dam. I'd never been there and didn't really know where we awere going. To my surprise it was in the business district where they've been building some awesome buildings that I usually only see from the highway when driving past.

Here are some close-ups:

The buildings

From the ferry this morning. I really like these buildings. Great architecture I think.

This big-ass cruise ship came in.

Gravensteen castle and more

After breakfast today, we first went back to the graffiti ally across the street. I loved the colours there!

But the real reason we went there was to locate a geo-cache that Simone found on her geo-cache app on her phone. After looking around for a while I found the cache stuck against the inside of metal bars with magnets :-)

We then walked towards the castle "Gravensteen" which we wanted to visit. Its entrance is at the square where we had dinner last night.

The castle was really fun to visit. It's not to big, lots of things and ways to photograph the castle itself or your lovely girlfriend ;-)

Great views though the entire city is crawling with cranes from all the construction that's being done everywhere...

We made it to the top!

Windows...

More windows ;-)

Me.

Simone sitting in front of the donjon.

I can really recommend a visit to the castle. It's under construction here and there but they've done most of it now. There are also some medieval attributes on display such as swords, guns and torture devices.

When we left the castle, another geo-cache was located nearby. The pointer was kind of in the middle of the square, yeah right. Thankfully a clue pointed out a tiny ally which we found. "You need a tall person to find this cache" was another hint.

The cache was hidden in a hole high in the wall inside the ally. Second cache today! :-)

The weather was OK again. Perfect for walking around and enjoying all the pretty houses and bridges.

Lovely.

Houses along one of the main canals. A big display of wealth.

We walked out of the centre a bit to find a third cache and later a fourth one.

What a pretty little face :-)

Then we walked back in town again, spotting the odd statue here and there.

Dinner in the evening wasn't great unfortunately. Service was slow and distant. When we left it was pouring down with rain so we had desert at the hotel. We were both very tired from walking all day long.

Another great day!

The windmill

Simone, her little boy and I went to do shopping for tonight's BBQ but we got distracted by ice cream and by this wind mill. The mill was open and all three of us went in and up, up, up!

We were allowed to go in all the way to the top. Usually this is restricted but the mill was stopped and  we were guided.

This hook is to put the break on. The pin you see in the middle is actually lower then the hook and when it's in the hook the break is on.

It is this very part of the windmill that the Dutch saying "Dat is niet helemaal in de haak" comes from.
("That is not hooked up quite right" meaning that something is not quite right or how it should be.)

The main gear wheel with all the break-shoes around it.

This contraption is to make sure the mill doesn't spin the wrong way.

The main axle actually drives about 4 smaller ones for several purposes.

The mill.

The old sugar factory

I went to Zwanenburg to look at a new garage for my car. The new train station is right next to the old sugar factory that they are converting in to a shopping area.

Main building of the old factory.

The old silos have already been converted in to.... something...

When i came home again I went in to town to get some new clothes. I passed the "Papagaai" church and noticed it was open. I went in to have a look. Not many people know there is a full blown church in the Kalverstraat.

I lit a candle for the friends I've lost the past years. They died so young...

Then I went for 1 pint. Ended up having 4, without lunch. Needed food BAD so got Indian with Gerrit and Alex. I should've made them pay as it was mainly them who got me halfway drunk and hungry! ;-)

Scotland, day 3: Glasgow.

This morning we visited the House for an Art Lover. It's a house designed in Art deco style. The website says "The exterior of the House for an Art Lover has been realised, in materials, craftsmanship and dimensions, as closely as possible to the Mackintosh designs of 1901". I have to admit it looks pretty groovy!

Lamps in the main hall.

Decorations in the dining room. I love these pictures. She is an opening flower.

Marjolein surrounded by art deco.

There is also an amazing little garden. It's very private and quiet in there.

There was a baby magpie trying to get its parent's attention.

I sat on this bench in the sun a while. Totally relaxing. I nearly fell asleep :-)

We continued our walk to the Pollok country park. We tried to make funny pictures with this mushroom but mine didn't work out very well, couldn't focus properly. Marjolein was striking a pose but I took too long and she fell over hehe.

Pollok country park is a bit bigger than I thought.

Mom and dad and their baby. Well, not sure if it's technically "theirs" looking at their respective colours... Hmmmm.

Somewhere else a magpie was catching a ride.

The Pollok country park also houses the Burrell collection. This man, Sir William Burrell single handedly acquired a very wide variety of art from all over the world and from very different time spans and civilizations.

The figure above is a figure of a Luohan. Luohans are Buddhist disciples who have attained wisdom but who remain on earth to help others gain enlightenment. This particular figure was made in 1484 for the Wang family by someone called Liu Zhen.

Burrell didn't just collect paintings or statues. He also acquired whole doorways from buildings. This particular one came from a church that was going to be scrapped if I'm not mistaken.

Egyptian art from the period 1085 - 332 BEFORE Christ. That's old!

More Egyptian art. This is from the period 1304-1200 B.C.

They also had a temporary exhibition on Jean-Francois Millet, who painted the above. I love the peace,  calm and togetherness of this picture.

Walking a bit further I spotted this Lotus Esprit in the parking lot. What an awesome car! They are reasonably rare I think since this is the first time ever I've seen one "in the wild".

The last thing on our to-do list for today was visiting a special tree that Marjolein had been to once before. This tree is called the "Pollok beech". It's about 250 years old and stands where once a castle was where the Maxwell family lived for about 300 years. Usually beech trees grow straight up but nobody knows why this one has such a peculiar shape...

In 2002 the Pollok Beech was named one of Scotland's 100 Heritage Trees.