For a moment my brother and I are filthy rich in Amsterdam
This week my and I walked for over two hours through Amsterdam on an almost too good to be true sunny February afternoon. We started in the Amsteldorp, which is an Amsterdam pearl of social housing and hopefully can remain so.
It is actually a piece of Vogelbuurt in East. Van Vogelbuurt is a part of Amsteldorp in Noord. It’s just how you see it.
You can easily reach the center from the Amsteldorp in a few minutes’ walk via the Wibautstraat. Or via the Frankendaelpark and Middenweg in Diemen. Or, as my brother and I walked on this beautiful winter afternoon, straight into De Pijp via the Berlage Bridge.
The crucifixes of Vrijheidslaan and Rijnstraat are among the most beautiful in Amsterdam. You walk through an open-air museum of Plan Zuid that was designed by the architect and urban planner Berlage: large residential blocks with a built-up style and decorative details that are accentuated.
A beautiful combination of form and function, which is always leading. It is clear that here someone with painting ambitions accidentally found his urban canvas through the architecture. The Amsterdam School, so beloved by me, logically succeeded him.
Then we walked to the Weesperzijde via the Ceintuurbaan. That always reminds me of a summer afternoon in 2008 when my childhood friend Romario found 2500 euros there in broad daylight. Of course the first thing he did was treat me to a hairdressing salon at Sinbad in the Eerste Oosterparkstraat. For him always: extra meat and no lettuce.
Today, there is a section of thrift store De Lokatie in the street with the announcement on the front door that the store in Noord is seven times larger. Everything in North is seven times bigger.
We decided to walk through the Oosterpark to the Eerste van Swindenstraat to get a Turkish pizza at Bakkerij Berakat with spinach instead of meat. And some salty biscuits to take home with tea.
As we walked up the Ringdijk, another Amsterdam gem, the sun began to sink further ahead and she drew a few nice strokes of paint in the shades of purple and yellow in the sky. It made me think of the LA Lakers and colors for how Kobe Bryant van Berlage gets painting lessons in heaven. Ringless on the Ringdijk.
My brother pointed to a huge house and told that we should all live there. I wouldn’t know what money. Next, he actually explains why comedians are actually the greatest philosophers. †You are not poor. you are broke”, he quoted Dave Chappelle. This afternoon my brother and I were, for a moment, filthy rich in Amsterdam.
Rapper and writer Massih Hutak (1992) writes a column every week The Parool† Read all his columns here back.