Kennedy's Visit

The Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam has been open for...I think about 20 years. After many years of trying, some people here finally convinced David Kennedy to come visit the office/city. I think he is happy he finally did—if for no other reason than the Sicilian mussel dish he ate Sunday at Koevoet. That dish alone may make him come back to our little city for a second visit. 

We'll just have to wait and see.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. That dish comes later in the post.

I am very lucking to be part of a small handful of people in the Amsterdam office, who knows Kennedy from my time in Portland. He arrived in town on the weekend, and so, I got to spend Sunday with him showing off our city, before he got whisked away to 

office meetings come Monday.

Sunday

Sunday morning Cari Vander Yacht (another former Portland studio designer) and I met David at his hotel, and took him to Greenwoods for breakfast. The same Greenwoods I went to last weekend. I just can't get enough of this place. So delicious!

After breakfast Cari had to take off to work, but she was able to join us again later for dinner. So, after breakfast we met up with Alvaro Sotomayor for a ride on his boat. Alvaro is a Creative Director that has spent roughly the last 16 years trying to get David over here. 

And he finally succeeded!

Le Cruise: We took Prinsengracht out to the Amstel. Went south a ways, got out to see a windmill. Headed back up into town, got out to go to the Rembrandt house. Cruised over to dinner, and then had a nice evening cruise back to the hotel after dinner. Nothing like traveling around the city via boat!

It was a lovely day for a boat ride. A little overcast, but still very warm. And there was no rain. So that classifies as a good day in my book.

Just as we got into Alvaro's boat, this guy came cruising by:

 Alvaro and David chatting about sculpture, while walking up to a figure of Rembrandt:

With Kennedy in front of De Riekermolen mill:

Hard to see it...but the below boat has a grand piano on it. I wonder if it plays after all this rain we've had. Even if it was covered, I'm sure the moisture is killer. The couple sitting in the back, although not playing the piano, were singing. How nice.

Driving:

Photo Credit: Alvaro Sotomayor

Spotting Kennedy's favorite bridges:

Once we made out way back up the Amstel, we visited the Rembrandt House:

Short clip of church, and Kennedy getting excited about passing under one of the 

old wooden bridges:

Can you spot the smiling man at the bottom of the screen?

On our way to dinner we stopped in the Noorderkerk–a beautiful 17th century protestant church in the Noordermarkt square. The protestant churches in Holland have very plain interiors. No decoration. Very elegant and beautiful. The floor inside the church was made of these really old slabs of stone worn and cracked from hundreds of years of foot traffic. Just after the below shot was taken, a dutch woman approached us and explained how people were buried under the slabs of stone. So, we were walking on graves. The courtyard in front of the church used to be a cemetery, and people are buried there as well.

For dinner we went to Koevoet. I came here a couple months ago with Rachel and Jessie, and so I was very happy to have an excuse to return.

Kennedy's meal was served wrapped up in paper. Maybe to keep the flavor from the steam of the mussels trapped in? The below shot is the aftermath of the mussel pasta. This dish may get Kennedy to visit Amsterdam again.

Alvaro, Cari and Kennedy, post a very amazing dinner:

Quiet boat cruise home:

Tuesday

On Tuesday the agency gathered in the main foyer to hear Kennedy speak about his work and regale us with stories of the early days of the agency. He showed us the work he has done for the American Indian College Foundation (AICF) over the last 20 years, as well as personal work. Below he is talking about the sculpture he made referencing American Indian typography.

Kennedy retired in 1993, but you'll still see him in the Portland office all the time

working on AICF.

Quote of the day: "I retired 15 years ago but couldn't find the door."

Sounds like someone else I know... (eh Nana and Gramps?)

After work I met up with some work folks and Kennedy at a comic shop to hear the tales of David Collier. David Collier is a cartoon artist/storyteller that decided to join the Canadian armed forces at the age of 40, to document the experiences of the military and war from an inside perspective. He talked about his recent comic book he published, as well as his artistic process, and some side stories. 

Nacho chatting with Kennedy about typography:

Toby Morris, W+K creative, drew a picture a day for a year, he then compiled all these pictures/accompanying stories and published a book last year. Kennedy happened to pick up his book and buy it. Once he learned it was Toby's book, he asked Toby to sign it. And what was Toby to do? Draw Kennedy's portrait in the cover of course!

Toby drawing Kennedy:

Some work folks, and some comic shop folks. David Collier is a little cut off, 

but he's behind Alvaro:

Photo Credit Jennifer Hambleton

After the comic shop some of our work crew went with Kennedy to Proef for dinner. The restaurant is set in a really old building in Westerpark, that they re-purposed for a restaurant.

 It had a nice open kitchen:

Alvaro giving us a thumbs-up across the restaurant (not really visible). 

You get a sense of the space with the worn walls though:

The centerpiece for the table, just a big 'ol decorative wad of fennel.

Delicious white beat soup. Pansies seemed to be a theme of the restaurant:

Piles of food:

Some sort of caramel toffy pie (with a pansy on top):

We said our goodbyes,

and he was off the next morning.

'Twas a good visit.

De Bos

There were a couple important discoveries made this weekend.

Fast-food vending machines, and De Bos.

Friday

First things first. Maybe I saw this last time I was here a few years ago, but I don't remember seeing it, and I was floored upon seeing it Friday night. Imagine a room. Lined top to bottom, side to side, with lots and lots of doors. These doors contain burgers, fries, other fried things I couldn't identify. Put in your coins, open a door, and bam, get a burger. I wonder how long they sit in there? I wonder how often people are made sick by these? I guess we'll never know. I must admit, very distant, deep down piece of me sort of wants to eat something out of one of these. When in Rome eh?

Another highlight of the evening: Finding out that there is, in fact, a beer store in this town that you can purchase micro-brews from the west-coast. IPAs! Unfortunately I don't remember the description of where this store exists, but I'm determined to figure it out very soon.

A picture of a polaroid of the hooligans I spent the evening with: 

Saturday

Went adventuring with Dan (bike buddy you saw from last weekend post) and met up with Ashley, Josh and Rachael (Kendrick not Mays), for a lovely afternoon outdoors.

Amsterdamse Bos, or De Bos, or Amsterdam Forest. Call it what you will...I call it heaven. I spent much of Saturday afternoon gulping in as much tree-air as possible. This forest/park/place exists a pleasant 15 minute bike ride from my house, and it is huge. Lots of trees. Lots charming tree-lined paths. Lots of fields. And like every Amsterdam park...lots of water. They have places you can rent paddle-boats and kayaks. They have kiddie pools. They have a petting zoo. They have spaces you can wander into, and not see any other people. Just lovely.

I'm looking forward to seeing this in the fall:

iPhone navigating. Tree. Bike. Baguette!

Photo Credit: Dan Maxwell

Picnic by the water

Petting zoo: Goats like to stand on things.

Petting zoo from afar:

A field I will wander to the end of at some point:

Saturday evening I enjoyed a lovely dinner at Los Pilones with Neeza, Pierre, and Ignazi. The restaurant makes it's own tequila, and it is very, very good.

When we left the restaurant we saw the after-math of a huge classical concert that had come to an end on the Prinsengracht canal.  The stage you see below is floating. I didn't see the concert, but it sounds like it was great. People were staking out their domain with lawn chairs along the canal starting about 10 in the morning. The concert was a grand-finale to a week long classical music festival.

Finished off the evening at a charming, mellow little bar.

A Bike Ride North

I had a very solid weekend indeed.

Friday

After grabbing a couple drinks post-work with colleges, Rachel and I headed to my place where we made some food and enjoyed the sunset from my terrace.

Saturday
The day was a bit of a downer. Miserable rain everywhere, all day long. But I got to spend
a warm/dry evening at Josh and Ashley's place with friends. Ashley cooked some amazing
leek fritters for dinner.

Sunday
The events of Sunday are related to the name of this post. After a leisurely morning, I met up with Dan, Stuart and Rachel for brunch at Greenwoods. Greenwoods is amazing. Looks like a place you'd see in Portland—delicious food, not expensive, and a line out the door.

Below is a shot of their light fixtures—up-side-down teacups!

After brunch, we hopped on our bikes for a ride up North. After a ferry ride and some city-street navigating, we were soon biking along canals and through fields dotted with cows and sheep.

The below is a map of our rough route marking where we stopped.

It's hard to make out, but there is a sailboat in the below canal, sailing along.

The canal is maybe 15ft wide...

A couple short video clips:

Our first stop was in a little village, Holysloot, where we enjoyed a beer. Then we hit the road again and continued north. At a "T" in the road we stopped at a road-side food cart. I was pretty impressed by the bike racks installed in this random location.

Getting some fries:

Stuart and Rachel:

Dan teaching Stuart how to do a hand-stand:

On our route back, we took a different route than the way up, and stopped at a lake-side cafe for another sunny afternoon refreshment.

When we made it back into Amsterdam, Rachel took us to this great place with a lot of outdoor seating. The perfect way to spend a sunny day—completely outdoors.

Monday

And the good weather continued! For 1 more day we were able to enjoy it. Monday after work I

was invited on a trip to the beach! Marieke, Stuart, and myself got a "Green-wheels" car and left 

town a little after 7. We took a wrong turn along the way and were forced to enjoy 

a lovely ferry ride:

The beach they took me to was beautiful. I guess it's pretty popular among the local surfers, and on a hot sunny day it gets packed. Since we were hitting it in the evening, and it wasn't hot, 

it was not crowded at all.

Marieke and I spent some time running around in the sand while Stuart went swimming.

Then we hit up one of the restaurants along the beach for a nice sunset dinner. Our table was right on the beach. And as usual, I took a ridiculous number of photos of the sunset, but I'll try and only bore you with a couple.

It was a good weekend.