Wednesday, May 20, 2015 Noorderpoort Schools

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

We toured Noorderpoort schools today. The schools are divided by area of study so our first school was of Health and Social Sciences. We learned a little about the school and then the students took us around in groups for a tour.

There are 1,200 students at this school, so many so that they have them in shifts for eating in the cafeteria. Here is one of the labs. This new building is also attached to a castle.

 This is the second school we went to which is by a professional soccer stadium. It is the school of hospitality and culinary arts. They have several kitchens, nine hotel rooms, a barber cosmetology lab, and a restaurant.

 Will and Geerte with the reception desk behind them.

 

 

One of the students on left and then a student tour guide (part of her requirements to practice giving tours). That is a coffee and alcohol bar behind (one of at least two in the building).

 One of two or three kitchens. I think this one is open to students to eat at off the menu.

The storage room with student staff.

The student lunch room. There are 1,000 students at this school.

 This is the hotel part of the school. They have nine rooms that they rent, Monday-Friday; they are not open on weekends.

 One of the meeting rooms (that can be rented to outside groups) that over sees the soccer stadium.

 The stadium

 Soccer themed hotel room.

 Another working lab with coffee and other drinks.

 Lunch from the buffet. Area business or groups may come in, but there is limited seating.

 We went to the Groningen Art Museum next. We typically get everywhere by bike. It was about a 10 minute ride to the stadium, then we went back to the office to pick up my computer, then about 8 minutes back to the museum. Very convenient. We had a tour guide who gave us a quick tour through the museum in an hour and then we went back to look at what we wanted to see more. Here she is explaining about the buildings and the various vision's from the architects. It was a computerize 3-D screen.

 This was the stairway which was to represent light bouncing off water.

One part of the museum, besides art, was devoted to the city and this is a piece of tank track from one of the Canadian tanks which liberated the city

This is an artist's bookshelf--he figured the books fell down anyway, so the shelves can accommodate that too.

 About a 4' tall glass globe. You can see the trading lines that the Dutch merchants used.

 This is a Rembrandt--the guide is showing us some of his sketches.

 This is a painting of a tower that was destroyed in the 17th century by fire. There are two people near the top, and one climbing a ladder on the right hand side. They are tearing the building down, brick by brick and then the tower was rebuilt.

 This is Werkman, a famous Dutch and resident of Groningen printer and artist. He was executed by the Germans in the early months of 1945, suspected of underground printing.

 Werkman did a process called 'hot printing' and these are some of his works.

 Another part of the museum was china and its history with the Dutch.

 This is the underground parking garages (looking from the middle, one way, one side) for bicycles by the train station.

The available spaces.

 The train station from the museum.

 Should be waiting room for 3rd class ticket holders (from when the train station was built).

 Pretty common.

The Sleutel or the Key, where we had dinner on Wednesday night.

 Klaas, Alycia, Karen, and Geerta at dinner.

 The Sleutel is a catering restaurant, so the menu is what is leftover--which the locals say can be very good or can be niet zo goed (not so good). This was a seafood pie that was very good.

 Real mint tea. Very good.