Ted Lasso In Amsterdam

 

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Address: Raamgracht, 1011 KK
Date: May 2024
Website: iamsterdam.com

    Ted Lasso is a television show starring Jason Sedeikis as the title character. It is about an American college football coach who ends up coaching a British football team called AFC Richmond. In England, football is the same as American soccer. In season 3 episode 6, Ted Lasso's team take a trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands. We also found ourselves in Amsterdam and while we were there we visited a few of the filming locations from this episode.

 

Higgins & Will

    The first storyline we will look at follows Leslie Higgins, the Director of Football Operations, and Will the new equipment manager. Leslie brings Will to the Prins Hendrik Hotel to explain his love of jazz music.

    Leslie explains to Will that it was Chet Baker who got him interested in jazz. Chet Baker is a well known jazz trumpet player and singer who died at this hotel. Jeremy Swift who plays Leslie Higgins is also a skilled jazz player and he proves that later in the episode on the double bass. The monument that Higgins shows Will explains that Chet died here on May 13, 1988.

    Chet fell from a second floor window of the hotel. His photo has been placed in the window. He had a history of drug addiction and his death was ruled as an accident. Higgins says, "We only know this. Drugs are bad."

Jamie & Roy & Bond

   Roy Kent wants Jamie Tartt to get some training while in Amsterdam. Jamie Tartt is a new star on the team while Roy is a veteran player and now coach of AFC Richmond. Jamie makes Roy chase him around the city. One place they visit is a bridge known as Skinny Bridge or Magere Brug. This bridge only allows pedestrian and of course, bicycle traffic to cross.

 

    Jamie points out to Roy that this bridge was seen in the major motion picture, James Bond's Diamonds Are Forever. In that movie, a canal boat passes under the bridge while Mr Wint and Mr Kidd stand on top of it taking pictures. The boat tour gets a little more than they bargained for as they see the police fishing a body out of the river. That reminds us of a boat ride we took down the Thames in London, England. Mr Wint and Mr Kidd's comments lead us to believe that they are responsible for the body in the canal.

   When Roy politely asks Jamie to stop for a second they are at the boat cruise stations beside the Rokin Canal.  Rondvaart in Dutch means cruise. There is another Bond connection here as the Rederij P. Kooij tour company provided the canal boat for Diamonds Are Forever.

    Even better, the exact boat is still operating. It changed its name from Prins Willem-Alexander to Koning Willem-Alexander when the real Prince Willem-Alexander became King of the Netherlands in 2013. The boat can be found in the Rokin canal next to the little Dutch elephant with long, yellow braids.

  Roy Kent catches his breath while sitting down on one of the concrete posts in front of the Diamond Factory. He sits on the last post which can just barely be seen (in the photo above) on the far right, between the planter and the street light. It is here that he points at the Diamond Factory windmill and declares that all windmills are fake.

    Jamie decides to round up some bicycles and go and find a windmill. It turns out that Roy has never learned to ride a bike so Jamie teaches him in front of the Allard Pierson Museum. After a little frustation, a few falls and a thrown bike, Roy finally gets the hang of it. The pair goes off in search of a real windmill.

Colin & Trent

  The next storyline follows another AFC Richmond player named Colin. He leaves the rest of the team at the hotel deciding what to do and heads out into Amsterdam by himself. He ends up at a gay bar named Prik and runs out when Trent Crimm, a reporter who is writing a book about the team, sees him there. Trent tells Colin that he knows his secret and they end up sitting at the edge of the canal near Westerkerk (the Western Church). When the bells of the church toll, Trent mentions that Anne Frank heard those same bells every night.

     Colin says she lived very close to this big pink triangle. They are sitting in front of Homomonument which was placed here in 1987. It commemorates gays and lesbians who are persecuted because of their sexual orientation.

 

Rebecca & The Man With A Houseboat

    The final storyline has Rebecca, the owner of AFC Richmond, going for a stroll through Amsterdam. She stops on this bridge where Groenburgwal canal meets Raamgracht canal because she answers a phone call.

    You can see the houses behind her. The light purple one on the left really stands out.

    As bicycles whiz past Rebecca, a man on the houseboat on the left whistles at her and says, "I have to say something to this beautiful woman."

 

     A bike rider comes close to hitting her and Rebecca loses her balance. She flips over the railing and into the canal.What is it that the mystery man wanted to tell her?  "You're walking in the bike lane."

    Rebecca gets out of the canal and the mystery man welcomes her into his houseboat. She takes a shower while her clothes dry and ends up enjoying a nice dinner and a few drinks. Her and the mystery man end up spending the night talking and having a great time. The next day she joins the rest of the team on their bus. Everyone from Ted Lasso had a great time in Amsterdam and so did we.

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Map of Our World
Roy Kent Learns To Ride A Bike , Rebecca Falls In The Canal

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Post # 337

Chippawa Volunteer Fire Fighters Association

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Address: 8696 Banting Ave
Date: Jan 2016
Website: www.achristmasstoryhouse.com

   It's that time of year again when A Christmas Story is always on TV. We were flicking through the channels and came across the movie. It reminded us of the time when we visited the school where young Flick gets his tongue stuck to a pole. We thought that would be a great blog to write. It turned out that we have already blogged about our visit here. On that same trip, we also went to Niagara Falls Fire Station #4.

    When A Christmas Story was filming in nearby St Catherines and needed a period accurate fire truck, Chippawa volunteer firefighters answered the call. They had just recently restored this 1938 LaFrance fire truck after it had been in service from 1938 to 1969.

    In the movie, you can clearly see the Chippawa Volunteer Fire Department logo painted on the door when help arrives for poor Flick. The truck above can be found in a small museum located next to the fire station. In 2017 the museum was named after a former Fire Chief and is known now as the Gene Somerville Memorial Museum.

    As well as the beautifully restored fire truck, the museum has its walls and shelves covered with firefighting memorabillia. It also has (as seen at the top of this post) a replica leg lamp made famous in the movie.

    The fire truck also has some Success brand fire extinguishers made of copper and brass from the 1920s. Actual firefighters also had success removing Flick from his pole. Movie magic made Flick's tongue stick using a plastic covered pole with a small hole in it and a little vacuum pulling his tongue towards it.  

  If you visit the Niagara Falls Fire Station # 4, why not bring some canned goods for the food bank and say hello to some real life heroes who are always giving back to their community. Then spend some time with a truck that had a small part in a classic film, spent 30 years fighting fires and still looks great at over 80 years of age.

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Map of Our World
Chippawa Volunteer Fire Fighters Association

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Post # 330

Gullfoss

Location: Iceland
Date: Sept 2015
Website: visiticeland.com

  The landscape of Iceland is unlike any other place in the world.  It is often referred to as the land of fire and ice. It has been formed by the power of nature. Volcanoes, glaciers and waterfalls have shaped it into what it is today. We visited one waterfall that is unlike any other in the world.

  Gullfoss translates to mean the Golden Waterfall. We are uncertain how it came to be named, but it is part of what tourists call the Golden Circle.  The Golden Circle of Iceland includes the geysirs of Haukadalur, Thingvellir National Park and the Gullfoss waterfall.

  The Olfusa river flows down to Gullfoss.  The water first flows over an 11 metre drop.

    The water then takes a turn and goes for another 21 metre drop into a canyon.

  Brave and properly dressed tourists can head along a pathway into the mist of Gullfoss to get an even closer look.

    Tourists can go right up to the edge of the falls and watch the water plummet into the earth. 

  The walls of the canyon where the Gullfoss water flows stand even taller than the falls themselves..

 

  Somewhere down under that cliff the river continues to flow.  So we have been told.

  Iceland in the winter is a dark cold place.  Days may often only have about 4 hours of daylight.  The band Echo & The Bunnymen chose to film the video for their song "The Cutter" at Gullfoss in the winter. The cover of their album Porcupine features the band in front of the falls.

   The Gullfoss waterfall left us amazed as to its beauty and shape and the mystery of where all that water goes.  Icleand never disappoints.  As we looked around from the road near Gullfoss we could see the Langjokul Glacier in the distance.  More adventure awaits.

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Map of Our World 

Gullfoss Waterfall

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Post # 322

Kelly & Ryan

Location: New York, New York, USA
Address:  77 W 66th St
Date: June 2017
Website:  kellyandryan.com

  LIVE with Kelly & Ryan is a morning talk show filmed at ABC studios in New York City.  The show has left the studio and travelled to Canada on three occassions.  Back in 1996 the show filmed from Niagara Falls, Ontario and the hosts were Regis Philbin and Kathy Lee Gifford.  In 2006, the show returned once more and this time Kelly Ripa joined Regis as a host. In 2017, the current hosts Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest filmed a pair of episodes and this time we were there.  Ryan Seacrest has announced that he will be leaving the show so we found ourselves looking back.

  We didn't actually have tickets to the show but we obtained ourselves a bird's eye view.  We had a room at the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel which overlooks the Oakes Garden Theatre where the taping of the show was to take place.

  The hotel also offers a great view to look across and admire the American and Horseshoe Falls.

     As we looked down from our balcony, we had a perfect view of the stage below.  The day before the taping we could watch the crews getting everything ready for the big day. The proximity to the Falls means that even if there is no rain in the forecast, you always have a chance of mist. The main desk on stage remained under a tarp for protection.

   Since we had arrived the day before, we were able to go down into the gardens and get a close up view of the stage. This is what it would be like to be one of the lucky audience members in attendance when the show went live.

  The audience members started to fill up the street at the bottom of Clifton Hill, waiting for their chance to enter the gardens.

  While the crowd squeezed into the gardens, we admired the beauty of Niagara Falls and were quite happy having our own private viewing area. It may have been way in the back, but we had an unobstructed view. 

 

   As show time approached we headed down to the hotel lobby.  Rumour had it that the stars themselves were in the hotel and getting ready to walk across to the Oakes Garden Theatre. Next thing we knew we had a front row seat as Kelly & Ryan were greeted to cheers from their fans.

  We headed back up to our private viewing suite.  We were just in time to catch the start of the show.

  Kelly & Ryan addressed the crowd of mostly Canadian fans.  It is only a short walk or drive across the Rainbow Bridge to get to New York state for any American fans in attendance.

  Kelly & Ryan sat at their big white desk. The desk was nice and dry after being protected under tarps waiting for the hosts to arrive. 

  To make the show even more Canadian, one of the guests was Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The highlight of his appearance seemed to be that he wore R2-D2 and C-3PO Star Wars socks.

  Since Kelly & Ryan had been nice enough to visit us in Canada, we decided to see more of them when we were in New York City. The show is filmed at ABC studios at West 67th Street and Columbus Ave. in Manhattan.

  If you follow West 67th Street into Central Park you will see a row of benches as you enter the park.  One of those is dedicated to Kelly Ripa.

      The bench congratulates Kelly Ripa for over 30 years with the Walt Disney Company which owns ABC. Kelly has been with LIVE for over 20 years and shows no signs of stopping. Her next co-host will be her husband Mark Consuelos.  If they choose to do another taping from Niagara Falls, we know where we will be watching from.

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Map of Our World
Kelly Ripa Bench , ABC Studios NYC
Oakes Garden Theatre

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Post # 321