Part 1: Rotterdam (Day 1 & 2)

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Rotterdam and Amsterdam don't get on to say the least. Residents of the former take pride in their gritty, hard-working image manifested by the city's position on one of the world's biggest harbours and the busiest port in Europe. Amsterdam is the 5th most popular tourist destination in Europe and its economy is fuelled by its substantial financial districts. Amongst people of my age it is renowned for its party atmosphere and relaxed attitude. Where Rotterdam stands for work, Amsterdam stands for play. Only fair to sample them both for ourselves.

Thursday morning saw us leave Essex, bidding tearful relatives goodbye and carrying backpacks weighing the equivalent of a five-year-old child (Si actually took a five-year-old child along but had it confiscated at customs). During the six hour sailing from Harwich we were both subdued. Si admitted to being sick with nerves having bade farewell to his girlfriend, while it had suddenly dawned on me that a four-year-old ambition was being realised and it was all or nothing now. However, after a couple of beers were seen off the mood brightened.

A comedy sideshow is always welcome at times like this and it arrived in the form of a passenger who clearly believed that his grey tight-knit perm and wispy moustache were sexy around 30 years after that dubious thought may have been within the realms of possibility. We decided he looked like Rudi Voller, the former Germany striker and manager, and managed to take a couple of covert photographs of him, trying hard not to gaffaw into our Heinekens.

After a short train ride from the Hook of Holland we arrived at the under-construction Rotterdam Centraal station and took what we thought was the right tram to the hostel. It was, but we failed to notice our stop (it wasn't our fault, they should mark these things out more clearly) and ended up riding the entire length of the line, both of us sensing something wasn't right but lacking the geographical savvy to trust our instincts and get off.

As luck would have it, the final stop happened to be outside 'Die Kasteel', home of Rotterdam's 'other' football club, Sparta. We took the opportunity to have a brief look around the unusual ground, so named because of two turrets on the outside of one of the stands, before departing back from whence we came on the same tram.

Due to its location on the River Maas, Rotterdam is home to a multi-ethnic population, which always comes in handy when you're looking for something tasty and unusual to eat (Dutch cuisine is notoriously bland). We enjoyed a cracking meal of a chicken skewer with fried potato and curry mayonnaise at a heaving, atmospheric Moroccan diner called Bazar before returning to the hostel, getting drunk and taking it all in.

Rotterdam is certainly industrial and most of the waterfront is dominated by docks and works of varying descriptions. But the striking Erasmus bridge was a fantastic walk to the south of the city on a sunny Friday morning. Our destination was the district of Feijenoord, home of one of Europe's biggest football clubs, Feyenoord Rotterdam (the name was changed because non-natives had difficulty with pronunciation, and for a club with sky-high ambitions, this just wouldn't do). De Kuip (The Tub) is in an unremarkable part of town but is an impressive bowl-like arena which holds 51,000 people.

After circling the ground we managed to get onto a tour for 11 euros and were led around with about 20 others by Peter, who spoke in detail in Dutch, and Maarten, who aided us helpless English speakers (we were the only two non-natives on the tour) by giving us a rough translation and catering to our questions. He didn't have time to be a complete interpretor so when Peter made a reference to west ham we just had to hope he was saying something abusive or derogatory. We got some curious looks and a few smiles when we heckled the mention during his speech.

The tour was so thorough that we had to delay our train out of the city by two and a half hours, but the highlight was when two half-naked models showed up in the stand opposite with a photographer and began to pose for raunchy shots. We noticed straight away but it took others a little while to catch on and even then they didn't seem too engrossed. Maybe if we were staunch Feyenoord fans we might have hung onto every word Peter said like them. Or if we spoke Dutch. I didn't care either way, I was in The Tub with two hot girls and I loved it.

The rivalry with Amsterdam extends to football too. Feyenoord's hatred for Ajax Amsterdam is so intense that away fans now have to be herded through a 4million euro tube connecting the train station to the away end as a result of violent clashes between the two sets of fans in the past. One fan was killed in a particularly vicious exchange in 1997. Peter would not use the word Ajax, instead referring to them as 020, the area code for Amsterdam.

In the interests of fairness, I'll tell you all about Amsterdam in a while. But the next stop was closer to my heart. That evening we were off to Leeuwarden to take in the first home game of the season played by my adopted Dutch side, SC Cambuur.

To be continued.

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Comments

[Ed Beavan]

Great stuff Jai
Keep up the good work Jai, the book'll be a cracker. Take care matey...