Blogs from Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 2

This morning we pack for our overnight journey to Belgium. As time is limited before our early train, we choose a Starbucks in the beautiful train station in which to break our fast. It's muffins and mochas beneath high gothic ceilings, heavy wooden beamed architecture, and droopy, amber-colored chandeliers. A tile mosaic above the doorway reads Europa. It's the most stunning, ornate building for an otherwise familiar trip to a coffee shop. ROTTERDAM Our train whisks us to Rotterdam where we hop on a tram to the Erasmus bridge to await our water bus. The chill of the wind bites through our zippers and drawstrings. And yet, there's no rain, so we are pleased. We board the water bus (thankfully with indoor seating!) for a 30 minute ride from urban, modern Rotterdam to rural polder countryside. ... read more

Thursday 18 June: Zachary still battling his cold so another interrupted night. But we managed to get ourselves up and moving and Heather headed into Amsterdam to go to the Anne Frank House for opening time. She wasn’t the only on with this plan and the queue was about 90 minutes long which was manageable. Zachary and I stayed at the hotel for a while and then headed into Amsterdam with a plan to meet Heather about 12:30. First thing I needed to do was get a new phone as mine had finally given up the ghost. A lady at Tourist Info pointed me in the direction of an electronics store where I managed to purchase a basic Android phone for €70. With a bit of help I got it all up and running. We then ... read more

Day 9 - April 23 - Rotterdam, Netherlands Today we we had breakfast and were ready to head out for a big day of adventures. We boarded a tour bus with our guide today, Miriam and driver Petro and we took a tour around the old town of Rotterdam. This is a huge city and a bigger port. This port is actually the largest port in Europe. The second largest port in the world only to Singapore. The city were bombed a lot during WWIl and what was rebuilt was modern structures. Next we drove to the town of Delft where we were toured the famous porcelain factory. We learned how they identify their completely hand painted items from the fakes. This was very interesting tour and the building itself was just beautiful with ceramic stair ... read more

So this past Friday, I grouped up with about a dozen co-workers to go to an event called FRANK in Rotterdam. The idea is that they close down the cruise terminal and bring in a DJ, then watch as it gets packed with about 3000 partygoers. Here's a set of photos who are interested in this sort of thing: http://www.frank010.nl/fotos.php What I wasn't expecting is the DJ was accompanied by a saxophone player - squealing away along with the electronic music. It don't think it was the original "Epic Sax Man", but it was close enough to make me giggle uncontrollably. Afterwards, a cold had me putzing around the apartment for the weekend. Nothing special, just watching Agents of Shield and complaining about the miniature appliances (half the size, none of the effectiveness). Cheers, Joel... read more

So landed back from my trip to Korea and finished at 3pm. Then had to run to another terminal to meet my friend for our little holiday to Rotterdam at 3.30pm. What a rush, don't know why I do this to myself! I was off to Rotterdam for 2 nights to stay with one of my Dutch friends, called Michelle, that I had lived with in a hostel in Sydney when I was travelling Australia 3 years ago. Was meant to be a sort of big reunion with more people but only me and one of my friends from London could make it. We have had a few reunions in London, and Amsterdam couple of years ago. Just so nice that most of us still keep in touch. So anyways, we had a fun girls weekend. ... read more