And now for...

First of all, happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Here are a few pictures of fun and greenery to start things off:



























































And this one's for my crazy relatives in Iowa City:
























Now to last Sunday's excursion, which by U.S. standards was quite "green" (haha, a St. Patty's day pun! Right? Get it? Yeah, ok...)


Weekend Excursions Part II

Or: the City of the Sun is somewhat awesome

On Sunday we traveled to the city of Heerhugowaard, which is right here:






















We went there to see the Stad van de Zon, or City of the Sun. Here's my picture of it:



















But that doesn't do justice to the layout of the city, so here's a cooler picture:


















Awesome possum, right?

Now for a wee bit of background: Stad van de Zon is a building/housing project in Heerhugowaard, not its own city as the title claims. The neighborhood is carbon neutral and also the largest photovoltaic community in the world. Translation: lots of solar panels and no net carbon going into the atmosphere.

Our group first went to the Gemeentehuis, which is the Heerhugowaard city hall, library, and basically everything else. It was a stylish, new building that we had all to ourselves.
























Bonnie demonstrates how the library is currently closed because the hydraulic staircase entrance is closed:
























Our host/guide, a city planner whose name now escapes me, even showed us the wedding chapel:





















Side note on our host: this guy was SMART. He was a city planning genius, had executed a lot of the vision for Stad van de Zon, and, on our walk later, upon seeing some daffodils coming up along the sidewalk, he began spouting off Wordsworth ("I wandered lonely as a cloud..."). THEN he started quoting something by Voltaire. Then his wife made him stop.

Where was I? Oh, yes, so our host led us then to a wonderful sight: a conference room with stroopwafels and hot coffee waiting for us at the tables. He then filled our heads with Stad van de Zon knowledge as we sipped and snacked. I think every class/meeting/anything should come along with coffee and stroopwafels, don't you?





































Then it was time to go to the actual Stad van de Zon! We walked around most of the main development for, I don't know, at least an hour, probably more. What follows will be somewhat of a montage of pictures without individual explanations. Keep in mind these general ideas:
1) It was very windy
2) Keep your eyes open for solar panels
3) The road with the trees is the Middelweg, and it is an original old road leading to the city.





























































































































































All in all, the Stad van de Zon was a very cool place. It had a lot of cool features that came about because the whole development had been designed all at once. For example, most houses/apartments had parking primarily in the back so that the fronts of the houses would be less cluttered with cars. The development also had a lot of variety in both building design and the types of residences -- single houses, duplexes, apartments, rental houses. There was even an assisted living facility! And a daycare, a school, a grocery store...on and on. The neighborhood also had a TON of kids running around outside playing (we had a few roller blading girls following our group for a while).

I must say, if I lived in Heerhugowaard, I would want to live in Stad van de Zon.

Finally, because this is my blog and I can do what I want, here's a tribute to my latest batch of tulips from the friendly florist man down the street. Spring is great :)