(cc) Ricardo Mateins

The OBA or Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam (Public Library Amsterdam) is a collective name for all public libraries in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The first library opened in 1919 at the Keizersgracht.

The largest of these libraries, the Centrale Bibliotheek, moved to the Prinsengracht in 1977 and 30 years later, on 7 July 2007 (07/07/07), to the Oosterdokseiland, just east of Central Station. It is now the largest public library in Europe. It has a floor surface of 28,500 m2, spread over 10 floors, 1200 seats, of which 600 with Internet-connected computers and a staff of 200.

This to me is a real modern treasure in Amsterdam, The building was designed by Jo Coenen, the former state architect of the Netherlands, and it welcomes up to 2 million visitors every year. Open seven days a week 12 hours a day, this powerhouse of information is so much more than any library you’ve seen before.

Its one of the places that’s always on my
“Must See” list for friends that visit, and for many reasons!

(cc) driek

Firstly: its an amazing space, really and truly I could post a million shots of all the unique and peaceful areas of this building, and never give you even 60% of its spirit. Here is a great photo slideshow to have a look.

Secondly: it is a beauty inside, but go to the top, or even any of the vast picture windows on each floor, and you will be treated to panoramic views of the city around you.

Thirdly: On a wet day its a great place to check your email (with 600 dedicated MAC & PC terminals) , read a paper, watch a DVD, listen to a CD or LP, check out their 360° projector viewing room, or play the piano.

(cc) gkluit

Fourthly: The cafe on the top floor, not only benefits from the amazing view but has great food, wine and beer, and free wifi.

Fifthly: for any design fan it is a treasure trove of modern gems, there is the most unique selection of seating in each area, from oversized bed seats in the kiddies area, to large armchairs in the news section, bubble rocking chairs in the AV section, to individual study pods scattered throughout. The light fittings are a beauty to behold and the structure and design of the floor signage is incomparable.

(cc) Wischenbart

A quick tour: Starting from open lightfilled basement you’ll find the Children’s area, Ground floor is the Entrance with Reception and Toilets (which are pretty cool themselves) Newspapers/ magazines and a reading cafe are on the entresol just above. On the first floor you’ll find all the Multimedia viewing area, CDs and DVDs. All of which can be rented by the week for a mere €1. For novels go to the second floor. Third floor is reserved for Travel and History fourth floor for Art and Music, while the fifth floor is where the Health and study rooms are. Sixth floor has Philosophy and Social work and the Seventh for Theater which seats 300. Also the La Place restaurant is to be found on the uppermost floor.

(cc) Monique Kooijmans

There is a Music Department where world music and jazz form this unique collection that includes exceptional sets from Brazil and Indonesia. The LP collection is easy to find in the catalogue, you can search either under band, artist, composer name or title. The department also houses the scientific section of the Stichting Toonkunstbibliotheek (Music Library Foundation) along with its large collection of antiquarian sheet music and songbooks.

(cc) irdrager

There is so much information about Europe and the EU available, that sometimes it is very difficult to know where to start looking for the information you need. Because of that, the European Commission has created an information network in all EU member countries known as the Europe Direct information network. The Amsterdam Public Library is a part of it.

The OBA made a quick video tour  – have a look as it really gives a good sense of some of the spaces. And make sure the OBA is on your “Must See” list when you come to Amsterdam.

So last week we said goodbye to the lovely Paula Jones in the scandal-wood disaster!

She wasn’t the hottest at the aul counting, but she goes away, not exactly smelling of Roses, but Sandalwood!
Confusing the price of Ceder and Sandal wood scents up, the team ended up spending £700 on scents alone, oh noes!!
Never fear, she got a promotion on returning to her old job, and is entering the blogosphere with a blog about her new shop “A Few of My Favorite Things” – will link as soon as I get one!
Check out this interview for more!

I have to say I was gutted that they lost, even though with the ceder wood/sandal wood mix up it was obvious they would lose.
Their product was lovely and really well presented and was something that people would buy, the other product, honey soap, was a total mess.
It was funny to see them film in Lush HQ, one of my favorite chains in the world.

So we have another week with Ben of “I got a scholarship to Sandhurst y’know” fame  – this boy really bugs the hell out of me. Especially since he boasts about something he never did anything with, so you got a scholarship, but you didn’t go!
While my disdain of  Ben grows, James admitted beginning to warm, nay beginning to love Ben, perhaps this is the start of the long feted romance in this season??
My favorite moments from last weeks ep:

James’ fear of the little crabs on the rocks as they went to find seaweed for the soap, he was dancing around like a prima ballerina! Wuss!

And Narools team accosting people coming out of the tube station to buy their squidgy honey soap, all the while wearing what looked like BioHazzard suits – uh-hu, and people will stop to talk to you wearing that??

Quotes of the Week  -

James on Kim

“She’s as dumb as a doorknob”

And Paula on Debra

“Shes like Sydney Harbor Bridge. Just when she finished putting on cream she has to start again”

“Debra’s 6ft 7 with her mouth open”

So on to this weeks fun! Its a Cereal Affair, and just to to whet your

Apprentice Appetite

The Mirror’s Headline -
Candidates viciously turn on each other over breakfast cereal character task

The Telegraphs Column by Margaret Mountford -

Philip, it turns out, has an obsession with pants– even when he’s talking about breakfast cereal….. [but its]… Poor Noorul, all dressed up in Ignite’s superhero costume, ends up sitting on a table in the garage of a suburban house waiting for the filming of their commercial to start – with his little matchstick legs swinging disconsolately underneath. Perhaps he thought the whole thing was a bit pants.

Yes we will be live blogging it (see below) in conjunction with Culch.ie

Come back just before 9pm (GMT) and have your say who is a Cereal Killer and who’s just Toast!!

(c) manuel mc

The weather these last few days has been so lovely, life here has been looking good for the coming months.

Saturday

Was a lovely day. After Keith’s party the night before, which was rather strange to stand in the same kitchen with all the boys, dressed as … well boys and not in drag as at the last party. The sun was out but there was still a nifty breeze when you were in the shade. Didn’t stop me having a lovely afternoon in one of my summer favourites, Tomaz on Begijnensteeg. Its a lovely little tapas bar that serves a slightly sparkling rose in the summer months, yum yum. Its on a tiny medieval side street off the main shopping street Kalverstraat, on the way to the amazingly peaceful Begijnhof. In fact the lane way itself was the only entrance to the Begijnhof originally, so it truly is a medieval route. And coupled with some spring sun and a nicely trashy paperback, things were good.

Sunday

Proved equally relaxing, having got my bike back and repaired good as new. I did a bit of shopping, first time in months – I have been a good girl. Went for a bracing cycle around Westerpark, hung out with friends for a lovely dinner at Burgermeester . Sunday is usually quiet for me, I like to be ready for the week ahead.

Monday

(c) ayalon

The weather got even better,  and it’s so nice to cycle home along the Weesperzijd’s riverside cafe’s. I got a good bit done at the office and left work bang on time, headed to another local watering hole, Struik on Rozengracht. I sat on the picnic benches outside with a verse munt thee (hot water, fresh mint and honey)  and chatted to some people, before continuing to chow through the aforementioned cheesy paperback. Then me and my freshly made lamacun went home to watch Great British Menu, Richard Corrigan gives me the shivers, he’s like a cooking version of GRyan! I even managed to stay up way past my bedtime to watch our Mr Mulley on Q&A

Tuesday

Can we spell pre-monstral! Oh yes as the wonderful Xbox might say the Red Menace is nigh. And I am having a tearful day. Please, for those that don’t understand this concept, the ladies lucky enough to not get teary pre the monster, and for boys reading that are not gagging right now. I am NOT actually upset, nor am I down or depressed. I will just cry at the drop of a hat, nothing alarming about that, is there? Things that make me cry right now are homeless kids, upset kids,  cute kids, babies,  – yes I see a theme too – and thinking of my Gran, Uncle or Cousin who have passed on.

Today listening to Phantom, I zoned out from what I was doing to hear, or should I say listen to, as I had heard it a million times, a Road Safety ad. James’s dad spoke of how James lost his life when he was walking home in the dark from a debs and was struck by an articulated lorry.  Tears quietly escaped while his fathers voice haltingly said “Oddly I miss him most on fine sunny days when I think he should be alive and out enjoying himself” and “if only he had worn a visibility jacket that night”

We lost my cousin in his early 20′s in an RTA, but not in Ireland, and the combination of knowing that another person understands its the strangest times that you remember him most, and the frustration of knowing some simple device might have gone a long way to prevent the pain of never being able to hear him call me a ghoul again! (might be strange to think but I’m actually smiling as I’m writing this, ok I’m crying too but I’m smiling)

Anyhow, the day went on and I came home, read more of my book (nearly finished it) and made a yummy salad, it really is yummy and I will put the recipe, thrown together as it was, up here soon. I sat down for another installment of Great British Menu. I’m willing the only woman, Clare Smyth,  amongst this years contenders to get through the heats. Afterwards the second an possibly the most bizarre reason to shed a tear snuck up on me.

Yep I cried at Snooker!    Snooker??     … Yeah Snooker.

Hurricaine Higgins

I promise I have not lost it, well no more than usual.

My Gran was a snooker nut, and stayed up till 3am to watch all the greats, during my childhood it seemed as though Snooker was on all year, and certainly every time I went to my gran’s. My grandad used to watch it on a black and white tv in his bedroom right up until he died. Snooker watching on a black and white with a snowy reception is a passion of its own. But the quiet sound of the commentators and the smack of the cue on white will always make me think of Gran. The clincher for me tonight was Steve Davis’s return to the Crucible!! Gosh I remember how much she didn’t like him, and how bored I was listening to her as a kid. I know she’d have loved to watch him get his ass whopped.  Alex Higgins was my nan’s toyboy, she even called the budgie after him.

Well wasn’t that a grand short week?

More of those please… actually the Dutch have a very strange public holiday system,

Easter (Good Friday & Easter Monday)
QueensDay (30th April) the Queen’s official birthday  – her real one is in Jan
then…. this is where it gets complicated,
Liberation Day (5th of May) which we get once every five years!
Assencion Day (22nd May)….
Whit Monday (1st June)
and that’s it…. nothing again until Christmas Day! Not a Sausage! But we do get compensated in our time off allowance.

Anyhow, as tonight is my good friend Keith’s 26th Birthday.

That’s the fabulous Keith at the Drag Party he threw in his pad at Muntplein.

As the fact he is 4 years off 30 depresses him… WTF?

I have found the perfect cocktail for the occasion.

Corpse Reviver #One

• splash of absinthe
• 25ml brandy
• 25ml calvados
• 25ml sweet vermouth

Method
1. Pour a splash of absinthe into a Martini glass and swirl around to rinse the glass, pouring out any excess liquid.
2. Place the brandy, calvados, sweet vermouth into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard.
3. Pour the drink into the prepared Martini glass and serve straightaway.

According to Underhill Lounge “Corpse Revivers” were a class of pre-prohibition drinks meant to be taken as “hair of the dog”. This version seems to be credited to Frank Meier of the Ritz, Paris and is identical to Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon”. A shot of Absinthe topped up with champagne  Which is a pretty fitting name for such a concoction.

So Drink in hand… we move to the links!

I made my debut as the Mainland Europe Culch.ie, it was a bit paltry as debuts go, but I’ll be back and I’ll find my stride

The hair razingly wonderful Alan Costello wrote a moving and intelligent post on Adoption

We all know the Obama’s got the famously promised dog, BO (Barack Obama?) – and that he’s a Kennedy!

But they also celebrated the White House’s first Seder for Passover.

Kiera Knightly HATES the internet? Well if she does but still has a compulsion to update her status…

Perhaps she should invest in one of these.  An offline status updater if you will, basically a reduced day diary, but it looks soo cool! Wantsies!

On the topic of good ole hand written journals, the much loved Moleskin have launched their DIY inserts for your Moly Love, MSK by Moleskin allows you to create your own pages based on your iCal or Outlook Calendar and contacts from your iPhone or Outlook.

There was a #Big-scandal when it was noticed  that Amazon had tagged any products with the labels LGBT as “adult” and thus removing them from search results and recommended titles many blogs have picked up on this, and our own Daimen Mulley wrote an interesting piece on the immediate overreaction to what was a system failure Amazon came back later and apologized for the “embarrassing and hamfisted” error.

Our own supermum Sharon Fennell got a mention in the New York Times no less, on her reactions to the book about the supposed “fight against autism”  The Horse Boy, by Rupert Isaacson. Well worth a read!… the NYT article and Sharon’s blog that is…. skip the book!

Phil of Icedcoffee fame organised a photowalk in Dublin at the weekend, results here, here, here, here, here, and here

The ever wonderful RP’s and her highly addictive game…. be warned, it will suck you in!!

Mr Evert Bopp went a ways to dispelling my Mum’s idea that I’m talking to no one on the internet, when he was interviewed on The Business on Radio One last Sunday about his start up support project GreenHouse Limerick. Please support it here, and if you are on twitter Evert is too, and GreenHouse. They are hoping Dell will help them out with some furnishing or supplies, computers… so tweet about it using this hashtag #doitdell. If you think GreenHouse Limerick is exactly what your startup or business idea needs, let the crew know.

In an update to last weeks link where Sweary pondered and ranted about those that believed friendships that began on the internet are less than those began in say the pub, Sweary takes a moment to remember her friend Chris, who has sadly passed away. Remember him and those that miss him.

And finally… a useful tool I discovered via LifeinJars, check it out at www.925ing.com

So, Ive run out of energy,  I’m writing this on Thursday night so I can party with Keith and Co safe in the knowledge that my blog will be fed! Its now (as you can see)  almost 2am and I need sleep.

My soundtrack to this post has been Ben Folds, who I love so much! And so I will leave you with not one, but two classics!

Still Fighting it – which always reminds me of how much I love my nephew.

“And you’re so much like me, and I’m sorry”

and

The Luckiest - I like to listen to this to remind myself that I am very blessed and lucky.