On Dike-Related Difficulties
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| Roll-call |
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Outside the Game:
After a good night's sleep, I was up pretty early. I finally bit the bullet and finalized my hotel for the last weekend in Amsterdam. I was toying around with the idea of doing some high-end boutique number or getting hotel in the city center or near Museumplein, but the former was way too expensive, and the later just wasn't all that appealing. I ended up booking another hotel near Sloterdijk since that worked so well last time. At the time, I didn't realize how close to disaster that would put me.
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| Ring-ring, ring-ring |
But I was out and about by a quarter to ten that morning, having bought a three-day Rotterdam pass from the front desk at the hotel. It wasn't "unlimited free entry" as the Amsterdam pass, but it had a ton of discounts in addition to a free public transportation feature. I took the tram to get near the water taxi for the day and walked the rest of the way. The next ferry to Kinderdijk wasn't for twenty minutes, so I took the opportunity to explore the nearby Erasmus Bridge. I got most of the way across when the signals went up that the bridge was opening for ship traffic. All the cars, pedestrians, and bicycles patiently queued up until the ship passed, and then raced across when the guard rails were back up.
It was time to get back to the ship, and I arrived just as it was docking. The ride out was a nice half an hour, or so I imagine, as I napped for most of it. We were disgorged at the stop and went on our way. Kinderdijk is a UNESCO heritage site, being one of the few remaining windmill/polder setups remaining in all of the Netherlands. If you see a picture of Dutch windmills, plural, you are more likely than not looking at a picture of Kinderdijk.
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| "Mill" part of "windmill." |
There was a new visitor's center being constructed, but the main show is the long line of windmills next to the canal. Two of them, in turn, are small museums on life in the windmills and the mill part of "windmill." At a brisk pace, I managed to get through it all in an hour, and I rushed back to the dock, because the ship back to Rotterdam was about to leave, and they only left every two hours. I managed to get the timing wrong and arrived just in time to see the boat leaving to sail back to the Rotterdam dock.
Well, crap.
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| Control your amazement |
With a lot more time on my hands, I went to the temporary visitor's center and saw the introductory movie I initially skipped, which had a bunch of people--contemporary and historic--arguing about where the name "Kinderdijk" came from. I went from there to the small museum and played a bunch of games centered around windmills. (One particular task had you controlling windmills to try and keep the polders safe. I got three of three stars.) I went to the gift shop and did some shopping, as well as grab a small lunch from their little concession. I went out walking along the windmills again for a little while taking more pictures, and I left myself a good margin for error in walking back to catch the next boat back, which I managed successfully.
Awake for the ride this time, it was quite nice, and a quick walk and tram ride had me back at the hotel. I started to use my shipping supplies to pack up a lot of my souvenir crap from the last week or so, and feeling motivated, I went back to the post office to get the requisite custom forms to ship the package, as well as receive some instruction on how to fill them out. I took all this back to the hotel, and then headed out for my evening.
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| Love, exciting and new. |
My main stop was the SS Rotterdam, a former cruise ship that was converted into a floating hotel and restaurants. I got off the bus that exclusively serviced the hotel and then went up the elevator and ramp to get on the last tour just as it was leaving. It was just me and one other Dutch couple. The tour guide apologized profusely for his "poor" English, though I told him in Dutch it was better than my Dutch. He joked that he would do the tour in "half-English," and he dutifully took us around the ship, explaining its history quite well, despite his perceived language problem. The husband of the couple was clearly a naval man of some sort, as he and the tour guide frequently fell into heavy Dutch about ship-related matters.
After the tour, I took the bus to the metro station and headed back to Market Hall. The schnitzel restaurant was still serving, so I had a sit-down meal there with a weinerschnitzel as big as my plate. After dinner, I took a small walk to Witte de Withwartier for more sorbet and then walked back to the hotel after tooling around the canal for a bit in the pleasant evening.
The trip was starting to grind me down a little, and I was getting tired much easier and earlier. I went to my room and was in bed quite early, catching up on more TV from my DVR over the VPN and planning out my day for tomorrow.
The Accommodations:
Not much on this front. I spent some time in here working and packing my souvenirs for shipment, but most of my time was spent in bed, one way or another.
On a Cave Full of Meat
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| Not a gay bar |
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Rotterdam, The NetherlandsOutside the Game:
I was planning to hit a bunch of museums this day, and I thought I was being lazy this morning by not being out until 10 AM-ish, but it turns out the museums in Rotterdam are even more lazy than that. After dropping off my laundry at the front desk on the way out, a short walk to all the museums showed that none of them were open before 11 AM, so I walked down Witte de Withwartier to find a breakfast place and ate up while I waited for the museums to awaken. I ordered a giant, overstuffed breakfast bagel sandwich and some orange juice that defied a pulpiness explanation. It would have been less pulpy if you had taken a whole orange and stuffed it in a glass. I managed to figure out a filtration method with my straw, but to this day, I can't believe there is anyone that wants their orange juice that pulpy.
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| Subversive |
Thusly fed, I walked back down to my first stop, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. It is always described as one of the most interesting and eclectic museums in Europe for its odd juxtaposition of works, but as my luck would have it, the museum was going to completely close down over Memorial Day weekend for some severe remodeling. A selection of exhibits were available along the periphery of the work zone, including a major area on the Bauhaus movement, and some of their "greatest hits" of classical and modern pieces, including several Dali's.
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| City-bound windmill |
The nearby New Institute seemed to still be closed for some reason, so I took the subway over to Delfhaven, the only historic area of the city that was not leveled in the German bombing in WWII. After a couple of false starts, I found the canal that was the center of the historic area. There was a working windmill, a Pilgrim church (yes, those pilgrims), and a historic brewery. However, I chose to come on a Tuesday, which as it turns out, is not one of the days that any of this was open, but it was still nice to walk around and take some pictures.
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| See, it's an audio guide. We're subverting expectations like GoT. |
Another metro ride got me back to Blaak station, where there was a giant street market going on. There were rows and rows of tents hawking various wares, in addition to a large calliope based on medieval models. I looked around a bit before heading off to my next stop, Laurenskirk, the oldest church in Rotterdam. Right off the bat, it was interesting, as the audio guide was done as a prayer book instead ot he expected little plastic square. The church had several interesting exhibits, including a library and some first editions of Rotterdam's favorite son, Erasmus; a movie of the German bombing of the city that was activated by putting your prayer book in a little nook; and cultural and religious celebrations that each had their own "cabinet" on the wall. The Ascension, for example, had a Jesus doll actually ascending into the clouds with the help of a slit rail. It was both intriguing and endearing at the same time.
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| Hoboken style, yo |
Another metro ride and some fumbling around with streets got me to the Rotterdam Museum. This was trying to be a "hip" museum, and the main exhibit was about rave culture in the city. The repeated references to "Hoboken style" were most amusing. While going through the exhibit, you were supposed to wear headphones that give you the experience of a "silent" rave, where all the participants are in silence listening to the techno music through their synched headphones, but I lasted for about two minutes with that god-awful music. But there were other displays on artifacts through the city's history, the culture of the city, and Jazz in Rotterdam.
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| Boom |
The admission here also got me into the oddly named "Museum Rotterdam 1940-1945 NU." It was a smaller museum that had just become affiliated with the main facility that details Rotterdam through WWII. Another metro ride deposited me there, and I arrived at the same time as a Jewish student from America. I only know this fact because he asked the staff how his Dutch brethren fared in WWII, and it was awkward, because I knew and the museum staff knew the grim answer to that question, but clearly this guy didn't. To their credit, the staff told the truth about the situation, and the American seemed more somber for his visit. The museum itself details all the events leading up to the German bombing and occupation, and then the events leading to resistance and liberation, but the cornerstone of the experience was a multi-media film in the main room that projects the bombing and the consequences to a number of people it introduces on all the walls of the room. It was quite effective, and you can't help but flinch when you hear the bombs falling on your heads even though you know it is sixty years later and in a museum.
I was feeling the day, and a short metro ride got me back to the hotel for a big nap. I pretty much collapsed for an hour or so. I did not have the stamina left for the big city museum blitzes I did in Amsterdam, and considering the last museum I visited, I am seriously reconsidering that choice of words.
I headed out to the world for dinner and was walking towards Witte de Withwartier again, when near the entrance to the street I saw a sign that said "Meat Cave." Now, either it was a restaurant or a gay bar, and given Rotterdam, I wasn't sure until I saw another sign with prices outside the place. This seemed like a signal from above, so I went in. The maitre d explained how it worked. There was a fixed price for a minimum of three courses, but up to seven existed, and they would bring out as many as I asked. It was all gourmet meat dishes, except for the desert. I knew I was in the right place.
The appetizer was a mini-meatball, and then I blew through five more courses of a meatloaf, a lamb chop, pork balls, angus steak, and then ice cream. Now, these were all frou-frou courses and not a side of lamb each time out, but I was absolutely stuffed by the end of it. Also, since I was the first one seated before all the tables around me, they all paid attention to what I was getting as a preview for their own meal. It was amazing.
I took a walk down Witte de Withwartier to burn some of it off, and for some reason, I stopped at the sorbet place again, and then walked even more to walk that off. I headed back to the hotel eventually and had another early night in bed catching up on TV. My feet were actually throbbing at this point, but I was happily full of meat.
The Accommodations:
Not much here again.
On Running on Fumes
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| I feels ya, man. |
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Rotterdam, The NetherlandsOutside the Game:
The trip was catching up with me, and even with the early night, I was up incredibly late the next day. I couldn't fling myself out in the world until around noon, and I didn't feel particularly bad about it. I think I stood under the shower for a good half hour.
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| Majestic puffinry |
I dropped some more laundry off at the hotel desk and took the tram to Centraal, where I topped off my transit card for the next few days. While there, I grabbed the bus to the zoo, the same one I had used to see Neptunus a week or so ago. The Dutch zoos again impressed, but my first order of business was stopping off at one of the food counters for a panini. The zoo had a lot of open exhibits for the animals, in addition to the largest play area I had ever seen, in the form of an African wooden house... thing. I was taking my time this afternoon, spending some time just sitting in the zoo's Japanese garden to give me feet a bit of a break. There were also puffins, which was always nice. Another food break interposed itself on the way to the aquarium area, and all in all, it was a leisurely afternoon in a zoo, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I grabbed a bus back Centraal and was back in the room by 4 PM for another big nap. I showered up and headed out to Witte de Withwartier to scare up a restaurant for dinner. I was vacillating on a couple of places whose menus didn't really excite me, but I eventually decided to go big and go cheesy, so I entered the restaurant at the Hotel Bazar, an unapologetically tourist Turtkish restaurant, and I had a way better time than I was expecting. I just went with the evening, and actually had some pretty good, cheap Turkish food with an entertaining waiter.
I stopped at the supermarket for some supplies on the way back, and I stopped to sit at the canal for a bit to appreciate a nice night out. Back at the hotel, I found my first laundry back with me, and spent a slow evening starting to pack up my clothes, double-checking my information on the game for the next day, and just sitting around in the plush easy chair, with the windows open and listening to a night in Europe.
Life isn't all bad sometimes.
The Accommodations:
Aside for some laundry transactions and naps, I just spent a nice little evening in my room recharging my batteries as much as possible, and that was swell.
2019 The Netherlands
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