Bike Ride to Almere

Well this weekend I had two goals: bike to Almere (30 km away) to see some modern architecture, and bike around Amsterdam to see the modern architecture around the outskirts.  You see, Amsterdam isn't built like traditional north american cities with the tall buildings in the middle and the height generally descending with distance from the centre.  Because of its preserved historic district in central amsterdam, its a bit of the opposite.  The modern (and tall) buildings are around the outside and I haven't seen most of them.  Anyways, the plan was a weekend of modern architecture.  Saturday morning Maya and I got up early and left on our bikes on a cold but sunny morning.  By the time we reached Ijburg about 30 minutes from home (and got a little lost in an area of expensive new homes) I realized my front tire was quite flat.  Quite upset at my bike, we returned home where I pumped it up and tested it to see if it would hold air.  It seemed like it would, so we cancelled our tour of Amsterdam and moved the trip to Almere to Sunday. 

The bike was working (not sure about the source of the flatness) and we had a wonderful 30km ride along the coast taking the Zuiderzee route.  It's a bike path that follows the coastline around the big bay and crosses the massive dijk (dike) at the ocean.  We ran into herds of sheep on it, passed through the little town of Muiden with its enormouse yachts and Muidenslot Castle (my first real castle ever!- sorry King Eddy), and passed over the big bridge to Holland's newest province, Flevoland where Almere is.  Flevoland is reclaimed land that has been drained and used for agriculture and cities.  Almere, a city of nearly 200 000, is very young- the first building there was completed in 1976!  so nothing older than that and it really feels new.  We saw some very interesting forms, facades, materials, and it was quite lively despite being Sunday (a day where no shops are open and no one goes out).  Back home we went to complete our 60km bike trip in time to make lunch for Monday's work.  Speaking of work, I've started designing the interior of a live/work apartment block in Amsterdam North.  They're drawings to use for sales and won't actually be built, but its fun to actually be designing on my internship.  Will show some drawings later this week or next when its more complete.  For now, enjoy some shots of the weekend trip: