Rotterdam

Saturday was a bit rough. I was looking forward to my tour of Rotterdam, but I had a small headache. In America, I think all college students have some form of aspirin/Advil on hand. In Holland, they apparently rough it. So I roughed it. Erik showed me the local ropes. He also helped me get my OV Chip Card so that I can use all forms of public transportation so we walked around down town to the local Albert Heijn (the grocery store). Their Albert Heijn is A LOT bigger than ours! It was so nice and wide open. They also had a great deli/bakery area where we bought fresh croissants filled with ham and cheese and a bottle of fresh juice and had breakfast watching the birds in the little plaza. After nourishing our bodies, we headed off on our day trek around the city.

***A brief history on Rotterdam: It is Europe’s largest port and it is the worlds 2nd busiest port after Shanghai which surpassed it in 2004. Rotterdam is the Netherlands second largest city behind Amsterdam followed by The Hague. On May 14, 1940 Rotterdam was blitzed by the Germans flattening the entire city. The only remaining structure which was reminiscent of the city’s medieval architecture was the Laurenskerk (Lauren’s Church). Up until this point in the war, the UK only bombed military targets. While they recognized that civilian lives would be lost, they tried what they could to keep them to a minimum. The day after the Rotterdam blitz, where a suspected 30,000 people died under the rubble, the Royal Air Force gave permission for their bombers to bomb any target that aided in the Germany’s survival regardless if they were civilian or not. These targets included oil plants and blast furnaces. ***

Erik took me by the local market that was selling everything from fresh fish to furniture to bike locks and razors. Anything you could possibly need, you could find on the market. It was fun to see, but I’m not a fan of big, pushy crowds so we just buzzed our way through there. There was a local church (the Laruenskerk) in Rotterdam that was the only building standing after the city was bombed in WWII. It was an impressive church and had that much more meaning knowing it survived being flattened by the war. After the market we came upon the famous cube houses that helped make Rotterdam’s modern architecture so prominent. I’m not sure how I would like to live in one of these. They were pretty mind-boggling staring up at them. It sort of made me dizzy. Here is a picture.



The next part of the tour included some of the old harbors. I don’t think these boats leave. Erik was saying that they have been converted into houses or restaurants and enjoy their lives in the safety of the harbor. The big white building in the back ground was Europe’s first sky scraper. Pretty small in today’s comparisons.


The below picture is part of Rotterdam’s sky line as well as their novel train stop. The roof looks like a flying saucer. There are also lots of cranes in the sky line. There is a ton of building being done on Rotterdam; new metro/train stations, sky scrapers, and apartments. I guess they are expecting big things out of the city.

The next picture is another old harbor. Around all of these old harbors are restaurants and cafes where one can sit out and enjoy the old pirate looking ships and good weather. I didn’t really want to sit outside; it was still quite chilly out. I can see the beauty of it though; I could have looked and dreamed about those ships too. I think one of them really used to be Captain Hooks!

The next picture is of Rotterdam’s statue De Verwoeste Stad (The Destroyed City). It was donated to the city from a private warehouse in the 1950’s I believe. It is supposed to represent the heart of the city being bombed, just as the heart of the statue is gone. A very interesting piece of art work-so many sculptures in cities nowadays don’t seem to portray the emotion or recognition that the artist says they do. This one, there isn’t too much to debate about.

After walking through the city we made our way towards the water way. There was an old maritime museum we passed as well as an old harbor museum we didn’t go into. The harbor museum looked neat though, and if I happen to go back, I might try to visit it. There was an old steam engine outside though that represented how freight used to be moved along the harbor ways from one ship to the next. I thought it was a cute train so I had to take a picture!

As we continued our walk, we came across the Walk of Fame. It is a knock off of Hollywood’s star studded walk but it was cute none the less. There were all sorts of famous people including the Tour de France star Jan Janssen. I was unaware that the Tour de France started in Rotterdam, but it does. All of the squares were different colors of pastel reds, yellows, greens, and blues. Jan’s square was yellow, just like his jersey color. Shrek’s square is green, like him. Evidence is in the below photo!

I had to take a picture of Johnny Cash’s square! It was the most American square I saw. Now, I didn’t exactly scour the path to find some, but his happened to be pretty prominent and therefore deserved a photo.

All of this walking had taken a toll on Erik and I so we decided it was time for a break. We stopped at the old Holland America cruise line office for a drink. The building is now called Hotel New York because that was where the cruise line ended, in New York. It was a fun café, and a very happening place. There was a nice pier/port area with grass and wide walk ways. Pictures of the rejuvenation efforts made this area look quite enjoyable during the warm summer months.

The below photo has several things I want to point out. First is the Erasmus bridge, nicknamed the Swan because of its bend in the pylon. It was built in 1996 and is a 2,600 ft cable bridge that connects the north and south sides of Rotterdam. The pylon is 453ft tall making it one of the tallest structures in Holland. Another interesting fact about the spot where this picture is taken is how the sidewalk/pier just ends. There are no signs, no fences, or armed guards, just the end of land and beginning of water. I don’t even know if there are ladders to get out if you fall in. Apparently, the Dutch are much smarter than the American’s in the fact they don’t need all sorts of signage to tell someone something so obvious. Their legal system is probably less busy with frivolous law suits also. I didn’t fall in. I used my brain to stop walking and realized the potential danger of swimming in the world’s 2nd largest harbor.

Some other tall buildings in Rotterdam:
• Rotterdam has the tallest residential building in the Netherlands: the Montevideo Tower (160 m (524 ft)).
• Rotterdam is also home to the tallest office building 'Delftse Poort' (160 m (520 ft)) which houses Nationale-Nederlanden insurance company, part of ING Group[13][14]
• The city also houses the 186 meters (610 ft) tall Euromast, which has long been a major tourist attraction. It was built in 1960, initially reaching a height of 101 meters (331 ft); in 1970, the Euromast was extended by 85 meters (279 ft) to its current height.


After our break and looking at the pretty harbor and watching taxi boats go back and forth as well as a tug boat pulling a crane, we headed back to Erik’s apartment so I could grab my things then catch the train back to Haarlem. I didn’t think it would be too difficult since there is a direct train. Well, the Netherlands are revamping several of the country’s main train stations and Delft happens to be one of them. So not only do these people have to worry about road construction, track construction is also pretty inconvenient. The lady told me I needed to catch a train to Gouda, and then switch direction of The Hague, then switch direction Haarlem. That seemed like a lot of work and a lot of switching. So we asked about a train to Amsterdam. Sure enough, there was one that left a few minutes later, a sprinter. Now when I think of a sprinter I think fast. I forgot to think short distances. This is exactly what the train does, goes fast between EVERY LITTLE STOP between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. It took longer than normal, but I didn’t have to change trains 3 times. So in Amsterdam I just jumped onto the next sprinter headed to Haarlem. Usually the train we take stops 3 times, once in Haarlem, Amsterdam Sloderdijk, and Amsterdam Centraal. This one stopped many more times, including the stop where Kelly and Stu got lost at. If they would have ridden one more stop they would have made it to the Central station. Hindsight is always 20/20.

I eventually made it home around 6:30 that evening, in time for dinner with Kelly and the girls at XO on the square. We all split a wonderful bottle of champagne celebrating their arrival and their week of excursions. On Monday they went to Brussels, Tuesday and Wednesday they are in Paris (returning tonight) and I believe they are headed to Germany tomorrow and Amsterdam on Friday. Their flight home is on Saturday where they will have one day of rest before school starts up again. They are going to need it with the schedule they are keeping!

Sunday was filled with an exciting trip to The Hague. Check in tomorrow for those adventures, big and small!