Rotterdam

Many moons ago, I can remember learning all about Rotterdam in my O level geography classes – Europort, the biggest port in Europe, very industrial, lots of oil tankers and container ships. Rotterdam never struck me as the sort of place I’d want to go and live, let alone visit.

One year into our Dutch experience and there is talk that Mr T’s project is forging ahead of schedule. Soon the emphasis will shift from the engineering contractor’s office on the edge of Schipol airport to the Rotterdam refinery itself. We may have to move. I have already staked my claim on our next move – it’s home, back to the UK, but Mr T may have to re-locate. So we thought, we’d take a look at Rotterdam.

There is a direct train from Haarlem, but for some reason it wasn’t running, so we had to get the metro out from Den Haag to Rotterdam instead. The connection worked perfectly, the metro winds its way out of Den Haag and across some very flat looking countryside through estates of new-builds. Why don’t they do that in the UK, I thought, build a new housing estate and connect it the nearest town by metro, or tram, instead of road? The Dutch do have some good ideas.

A bad idea, however, is the cube house. This was one of the things I wanted to see in Rotterdam (I’d read the guidebook and realised there was actually a lot more to Rotterdam than oil refineries and shipping containers).  The majority of Rotterdam, a bit like our home town of Southampton, was flattened during the Second World War, and unlike most of the Dutch towns we have visited so far, there wasn’t a cobblestone in sight. Rotterdam has been rebuilt, and the 50’s and 60’s, as anyone who lives in Southampton will know, wasn’t a time for brilliant architecture. However, the Dutch, being the Dutch, overcame this problem with a bit of experimentation. In the 1980’s they came up with the cube house – a sort of three-storey glorified garden shed.  A claustrophobic concept, similar to my own black carpet dilemma – designed by someone who never had to live with one.

(Yes, the building behind the cube houses is supposed to look like a giant pencil!)

The black carpet is another reason why I am hankering for home. I’m fed up of living in someone else’s house. I’m fed up of vacuuming black carpet.  Maybe a move to a modern swanky Rotterdam apartment wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  I could live with the city’s circa 1970’s concrete shopping precinct, I’m used to that. I don’t need gables and canals.

I liked Rotterdam. I liked its parks and its waterfront (there’s miles of that, after all).  It had a good feel, not a drunken-stag-party sleazy feel like Amsterdam. It has the feel of a place on the way up (quite literally with some of the sky-scrapers) as opposed to on the way down. I liked the fact that we didn’t step out of the central station into a fug of pot fumes (top tip for anyone travelling to Amsterdam for the sole purpose of buying cannabis –  don’t. Save your money and just inhale everyone else’s).

So, all in all. A pleasant surprise.

Some more sights from Rotterdam.....giant rabbits

and the Dutch don't worry at all about being PC...

 (or is it just as un-PC to call it crazy??)

Dark Days

It’s only the middle of October and already the mornings are very dark here in Haarlem. It’s times like this, especially after two and a half weeks’ away, that I have to remind myself, continually, how lucky I am to be having this ex-pat experience.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy living in the Netherlands, I do.  I just hate the thought of at least six months now of the seven o’clock alarm going off in what feels like the middle of the night. My legs now won’t see the light of day for probably another nine months (some people might think is is a good thing). I came back from my holiday and packed my T-shirts away. It’ll  be jeans and jumpers until next May. I've already had to buy extra gloves, socks and hats. Surely even the most upbeat, happy-smiley people would find that  just a tad depressing.

So how to fight off the bleak, black thoughts? Get out and about. Last weekend the temperature might well have been down in single figures but the sun was out so we went to Muiderslot - a medieval castle just a thirty minute drive away.

It’s a hands-on type of place - an ideal outing if you have a family of young boys. Mr T enjoyed himself very much.  Perhaps we were still on a Dubrovnik/Games of Thrones  high (we’ve ordered the box-set). There were dungeons and turrets to explore, a jousting simulator (that’s a first) and inter-active canon ball games up on the ramparts. There were medieval costumes including a suit of armour to try on. You could waggle swords and handle a cross-bow. The Dutch know how to keep kids entertained. 

Of course the alternative to getting out and about and exploring, is shopping. We all know the suger-rush high from retail therapy is NOT A GOOD THING, but it certainly helps. There are lots of sales on here at the moment!

Or, I could just batten down the hatches, stay indoors and take selfies with the cat.

A Change of Scenery

I don’t need steaming volcanoes and grand river canyons, but two and a half weeks away from the Netherlands has made me realise how much I miss ‘scenery’. The Dutch landscape is very flat. It’s very samey. It's fields of grazing cattle and sheep. It’s bulb fields – a blazing glory for six or seven weeks of the year and then bare earth until the spring.  In this part of the Netherlands, sand-dunes are strapping peaks.  Dutch bikes don’t have gears – there’s no need.

The first thing I noticed when we emerged from the Channel Tunnel and drove through the rolling Kent countryside back in the UK was the rich variety of colours in the fields,  like a patchwork quilt,  arable crops, the wheat ready for the harvest,  the hedgerows and trees. There are no mountains in Kent, but there are hills and slopes. Hampshire is the same. The M3 cuts through cliffs of chalk, the village where we have our UK home is set in a river valley – a valley – you have to walk down to reach the water, and then you have to walk back up. It’s all very good for those defunct calf muscles which get no exercise at all no matter how far I walk in the Netherlands.

And then we flew to Croatia. Croatia has scenery – masses of it. Mountains, dramatic cliffs, rocky coves, inaccessible islands, crystal clear water. Dubrovnik is not a city for the elderly, or the infirm, or anyone in a wheelchair or with a pushchair, (athough since it has been rebuilt following the Yugoslav wars in the 1990’s it has apparently been made a lot more accessible than it used to be). Flights of stone steps lead to tiny narrow alleyways where you have to weave your way through restaurant and café tables, gift shops and craft shops, and shops selling Games of Thrones memorabilia. I’ve never watched Games of Thrones, but I am going to have to now, even if it is just to keep getting a drip-feed of the wonderful Croatian scenery.

I loved Dubrovnik. I didn’t care about the zillions of cruise passengers on their guided walking tours of the city in their plastic pac-a-macs and flip-flips who would abruptly stop in front of you to take a picture with their selfie-sticks.  Yes it is a tourist trap, but a very beautiful tourist trap and I don’t blame the locals for milking it for all it is worth.

Haarlem too has its fair share of tourists. It too is a beautiful old city, but I’ve realised now it just lacks a bit of drama. Maybe somebody needs to come and film something here, something raunchy, just to spice it up a bit. 

We did notice, however, as we walked along the street to the pub for the quiz on Monday evening that a few changes had taken place since we left.  What had been a second-hand clothes shop is now a fancy cake shop, a new shoe shop appeared to have sprung up – although it only appeared to be selling a very limited (and presumably very exclusive) line of shoes.  The chip shop was closed, the craft beer bar open (unusual for a Monday), another cafe had changed hands.   As I’m sure I’ve said before, small businesses here appear to be run more as hobbies, than going financial concerns. Or maybe that’s just the way the Dutch like to do things - low-key.  Just like the scenery.