Mediamatic, my family and former home in Amsterdam, is currently showing an exhibition about Amsterdam Noord, and on that topic recently published the first arabic travel guide about a location in the Netherlands.

Noord is a neighbourhood north of the IJ river, hence the name. There are many polders, farms, and short houses. Also an old friend who used to make me stamppot all the time. So while I was in Amsterdam for the sixth FabLab conference I went up to Noord with Willem Velthoven to take some grassroots mapping balloon photos of Noord. Click on the images to go to their flickr pages where you could see them BIG.

Willem and I got helium and 1m balloons at the feestballonwinkel on the Rozengracht, and sent up a canon s90 with CHDK like described on the Grassroots Mapping wiki.

The cows mostly ignored us…

The horses wanted to be fed the juicy grass from outside their fences,

…and we kind of freaked out this farmer. Either way, great fun, and you should all check out the Amsterdam Noord Exhibit at Mediamatic Bank, Vijzelstraat 68.