Getting to Know Groningen Better

I started today with a tour of the Groningen government services building. The contrast between our two countries is very interesting when it comes to the government. We are a federal system with multiple layers of government. Passports? That's a federal service. Driver's licenses? That would be a state service. How about if you want to challenge your property tax assessment? That would be a county service.

Not in the Netherlands. There is just the government, a single entity. So today I visited the building where you could get a passport or a driver's license, apply for welfare or unemployment, or challenge your property tax assessment or your parking tickets.

Seriously. Three years of law school, and it never dawned on me to challenge parking tickets.

The building is beautiful. It's made of 100 percent sustainable materials and as energy efficient as they can make it. And since it's Dutch, there are plants and flowers crammed into every conceivable space. Here's the cafeteria:

We're not outside. The roof is all glass. As you can see, so are many of the walls. What's a person to do when surrounded by so much glass? Well, if the person is Dutch, the obvious answer is design a machine to clean the windows.

That's it, lurking behind the plants on the 3rd floor. They run it at night.

After lunch with their college CEO, we were treated to a guided tour of the historical part of the city. Groningen was first mentioned around the year 1100. By the 15- or 1600s, it was a walled city with a moat. The walls are long gone, but the canals remain. So streets within the old walled part are prefaced with the word Oud (old), but once they cross the canal, they are prefaced by Nieuwe (new), even though they're probably 500 years or more in age.

Groningen is home to a university

with a law school. I even met one of the law students. She was running for the student senate and handing out campaign literature as we happened by. Here's the school of law and languages:

By the way, the silvery sculpture in the foreground represents the professors pouring out their knowledge for their students. I noted to one of my fellow visiting professors that most of it appears to be puddling on the ground.

There is also a palace:

It has a shade garden, where genteel ladies of an earlier era could get some fresh air without worrying that the sun might darken their skin:

We capped off our tour with a stop at a local bar for a beer. Prost! (Cheers!)