I have been debating whether or not to include this post, but in the end I will. When I started this blog, I wanted it to have three main focuses: a portrayal of all of the foreign places I travel to, highlighting many different places in the Netherlands, and highlighting many different places in Amsterdam. I wanted to paint a portrait of the city.

Now that does include the well known and scenic parts of the city, but what about everything else? The Amsterdam that most tourists won’t see, and instead is used by the people who live there? What about the parts that don’t have old scenic buildings and houses? It is my opinion that the travel community tends to focus a bit too much on the sight seeing: the big sites everyone wants to go to, measured out in just about every article, often represented by just one photo. And while I like going there and all, I also like to just get lost in cities, explore all the nooks and crannies, figure out what makes a city ‘tick’. All of the attention that went into planning the actual city, rather than just the famous parts. A city is not just a theme park.

So, Bullewijk. It lies in the most southern regions of the city, in the middle of the Bijlmermeer-suburbs. If you only have one or two days to spend in Amsterdam: don’t go here. There are many more worthwhile places to go to. I’m creating a post because I just happened to need to go there for the IKEA, pretty much the only reason for most residents of Amsterdam to want to go there. It’s in the middle of an Office park of fairly new office buildings. This regions is one of the biggest areas purely meant for offices, who don’t want to deal with the crazy rents of the Zuidas. Many banks are settled here, the fire department has a very prominent office. Especially during rush hour this place is very lively, otherwise it’s mostly dead. Aside from the people carrying cardboard packages and big blue-yellow bags.

However, this too is part of Amsterdam. I want to use the next number of years to paint an as complete picture as possible of the city that I’ve lived in for ten years now. Let’s see if there is an audience for it.