August 4, 2020

Kids learn about wine at a Dutch château

Filed under: Event,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:27 pm

In southern France’s Languedoc-Roussillon, Dutchman and owner of Château Canet Floris Lemstra is currently welcoming schoolchildren to teach them about winemaking, albeit without actually tasting any alcohol – they use soft drinks, sugar, salt and water to get the idea.

Wine museum Cité du Vin in Bordeaux, France is promoting wine education at smaller French wineries with free passes through the end of August to children under 18, and Lemstra thought it would be great for schoolchildren to learn all about viticulture.

Lemstra takes several groups of kids on an educational tour, teaching them about vineyard maintenance, harvesting and bottling, with plenty of time set aside to poke around in the vines and check out cool stuff like the stainless steel vats in the cellar.

“Teaching children about wine and alcohol is a little abstract at their age. However, we believe that demystifying wine and its consumption is important,” Lemstra said. He further added that although wine can be pleasant, it’s also an alcoholic beverage with its drawbacks.

Floris built up his wine career back in the early 1990s working for Boisset, one of the biggest wine companies in France. Buying Château Canet was quite difficult, as local government would have rather it was owned by card-carrying French people. Lemstra and his New Zealand wife Victoria whom he met in the Bourgogne region now run the place. Having read about it myself, I want to visit it as well.

(Link: , Photo: Château Canet)

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October 30, 2018

Dutch championship escape room scheduled for 2019

Filed under: Dutch first,Event,Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 1:56 pm

On 7 January 2019, the first ever national championship escape room will take place in Erp, North Brabant and will involve ‘an escaped psychopath from Germany’. The goal is to find out what he’s planning, find his bombs, and thwart his plans.

According to organiser Joris van den Bergh from Erp, they’ll be three preliminary rounds before having a shot at being the winning team. In other words, it won’t be a walk in the park. There is room for 22 teams (sign up here until this Thursday), each of which should consist of four or five people. Sign-up costs 200 euro per team.

Since more than 1000 people will be participating, some 32 escape rooms will be used. The best 75 teams will go for the final in an actual castle, the location of which is still under wraps.

One of the last times we mentioned an escape room, it was one based on Anne Frank’s life, which raised a lot of eyebrows.

(Link: omroepbrabant.nl, Photo by Aapo Haapanen, some rights reserved)

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April 28, 2016

King’s Day 2016 in Amsterdam through the lens of René Louman’s camera

Filed under: Event,Photography by Branko Collin @ 4:58 pm

kings-day-2016-rene-louman

Rain and wind disrupted this year’s King’s Day. The rain largely passed by Amsterdam, but it was still cold enough that visitors had to dress warmer than usual.

Amsterdam-based photographer René Louman took to the streets and captured the rainy streets of the day before, the King’s Day Eve concert of the Amsterdam Klezmer Band and the King’s Day festivities in the city. He also has a good comparison of how busy it was last year and how quiet this year.

Telegraaf speculates that the weather kept many people indoors. Last year’s daytime broadcast of the royal visit to Dordrecht drew 2.5 million viewers, this year’s broadcast of King Willem-Alexander’s visit to Zwolle had 3.4 million viewers.

Like every year Orangemaster and I went to the area around Apollolaan in Amsterdam to look for good deals on the nationwide flea market. I managed to score a camera bag for 2 euro that still had a camera in it!

(Photo: René Louman)

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January 11, 2016

Amsterdam gets its own carnival name

Filed under: Dutch first,Event by Orangemaster @ 1:47 pm
carnaval

We’ve written quite a bit over the years about carnival music (here and here), but this year a carnival party crew has kicked up a notch, giving Amsterdam a carnival name.

And that name is ‘Gròòtgragtegat’, roughly ‘big hole with canals’, a name given by Alaaf & Kicking, a party organisation made up of people from Noord-Brabant living in Amsterdam who will be holding a carnival party on January 22. They actually held a vote for the name, as other contenders were ‘Amsteldonk’ and ‘Poalkesdurp’.

Pronouncing ‘Gròòtgragtegat’, with the typical hard gutteral ‘g’ sound of Amsterdam residents is tough even for Dutch people and great practice for anybody else. Here’s a whopping list of Dutch cities that get carnival names according to Wikipedia. Amsterdam isn’t on it – yet.

(Links: www.bndestem.nl, at5.nl)

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October 8, 2015

Virtual reality movie theatre to premiere in Amsterdam

Filed under: Dutch first,Event,Film by Orangemaster @ 7:10 pm

For anyone who hates 3D movies, look away now: a new virtual reality pop-up movie theatre will open in Amsterdam on October 31, organised by Samhoud media. The idea is to watch short 30-minute films, with many showings to choose from through the evening.

You’d be watching video through a Gear VR headset from Samsung and Oculus, an experience that will run you 10 euro. For 30 euro you can live large and enjoy a loveseat and VIP experience. Oh, and there will be popcorn. Owner Jip Samhoud said that it’s the first time in the Netherlands that they are going to apply such large-scale virtual reality, and it could very well be the first time in Europe.

The films are a surprise: no idea if they are Halloween related.

(Link: www.nltimes.nl, photo of film cans by tallfoot, some rights reserved)

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June 22, 2015

Dutchman best looking model of 2015

Filed under: Event,General by Orangemaster @ 6:48 pm

rogierwarnawa

The 2015 winner of the 8th edition of the Men Universe Model Pageant is Rogier Warnawa, 24, from Eindhoven, crowned best looking model at a ceremony yesterday in the Dominican Republic. Warnawa was up against some 40 men from all around the world. He currently studies International Business & Management in Eindhoven and should soon be graduating. He also into mixed martial arts and has talked about getting into the film industry.

“Say hello to the new Mr Universe!” he told everyone on social media. In May, when he had been chosen to represent the Netherlands, he had told Telegraaf newspaper that, “he was still just a ‘cheese head’ from Eindhoven”, in true level-headed Dutch style.

(Links: www.nieuwsblad.be, www.telegraaf.nl, Photo: www.fontys.nl)

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December 22, 2014

Amsterdam Light Festival brightens up the winter

Filed under: Art,Event by Orangemaster @ 12:57 pm

AMSLightFest2

In its third year, the Amsterdam Light Festival runs until 18 January 2015 and makes any winter night on the town that much more fun. Whether you’re a tourist or a local, a boat ride will give you a great view of some of the installations. I went on a running and walking tour where installations could be found in gardens (bike wheel dome shown here) and streets.

At 0:37 in the video, you’ll see coloured tulips coming out of a canal, the Herengracht, which have to be pumped up by passers-by using bicycle pumps. Other installations had their colours controlled by sound, motion and even Wi-Fi, making it interactive.

Amsterdam light festival 2014/15 from Jack Fisher on Vimeo.

(Link: roomed.nl)

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November 12, 2009

Thriller Festival Zoetermeer

Filed under: Event by Branko Collin @ 9:45 pm

100 hours of thrill.

September 7, 2009

Jacques Brel at the ‘Pont d’Amsterdam’

Filed under: Event by Branko Collin @ 8:04 pm

Unique exhibit of Jean-Pierre Leloir’s portraits of Jacques Brel at the little café underneath the ‘Multatuli bridge’ (Torensluis). 24 Oranges very own Orangemaster will be spinning discs during opening night!

Bright Night, gadget extravaganza

Filed under: Event by Branko Collin @ 7:46 pm

logo-brightBright goes RL. The magazine that may be not entirely unknown to our readers will kick-off its series of Bright Nights, “presentations of inspiring innovators, demonstrations of cutting edge gadgets and displays of state of the art design.”