Friday, January 17, 2020
On Friday, we spent quite a lot of time back at the Witte de Withstraat. Our first stroll down Witte de Withstraat for the day was with Chris Johnson and Mark Martecchini '79 for lunch. We walked from the office building to Hamburg, a very delicious burger restaurant with Dutch beef.
After work, we went to the Meent, which is a side street of Coolsingel, that is a popular shopping area. We went to visit a small Japanese store, Nishi, that Linda found a couple days prior. I bought bubble tea. Then we walked around the Meent to check it out and look for food. After walking for awhile, we came upon the Markthal. Here we also looked for food, and then headed back towards the Witte de Withstraat. At this point, it was around 7 pm, and all of the restaurants were full or required reservations. Eventually, Linda and Duane decided to go back to the Markthal and eat at an Italian restaurant that we had briefly looked into before. I was currently fighting off the start of a cold, and wanted an early night before a long day of travelling. So, I went into a nearby shoarma restaurant before heading home. Linda and Duane, however, stayed out pretty late.
[Linda] Duane and I headed back towards Stadsdriehoek to have dinner at Fellini, an Italian restaurant in the Markthal. The food was super tasty. While there, my desk buddy, Julius, met up with us. Once we were all done eating, Duane, Julius, and I returned to Witte de Withstraat to grab drinks. We stopped at Obba's Day & Night for beers and chatted for a while. Julius was meeting up with old friends the next day, I had an early bus in the morning, and it was past Duane's bedtime, so we decided to split a little past midnight.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Linda and Shannon's Day in Brussels
[Shannon] Saturday morning, Linda and I woke up fairly early to catch our bus out of Rotterdam Zuidplein at 8:10. The bus we took was the same route that we took to Antwerp, although getting off at the next stop, Brussels. The drive was about 2.5 hours long, and we arrived around 10:30 at the Gare de Bruxelles Nord (Brussels North station). From here we walked towards La Grand Place (Grote Markt, central square) which is surrounded by former guildhalls, the Town Hall, and the King's House (or Breadhouse) which is now the city museum.
From here, we explored a little, while looking out for a good cafe for breakfast. We walked through the Galeries Royales Saint Hubert (Royal Gallery of Saint Hubert). Inside we found a nice cafe, Le Pain Quotidien, where we enjoyed a nice breakfast and planned out our day.
After breakfast, we went to the Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule (Saint Michael and Saint Gudula Cathedral), Belgium's national church.
After the church, we continued to look around the general area we were in. We found a waffel shop, that we swore we would be back to. After a while, we found a brasserie to each lunch at.
Upon finishing lunch, we decided what we were going to do for the evening. We decided on going back to the previous waffel shop for dessert and then head to the Musée des Instruments de Musique (Musical Instrument Museum). To get to the museum we walked through the Mont des Arts which is a beautiful little garden surrounded by several museums and near the royal palace. The museum was very nice, but unfortunately we weren't able to get to the "-1" floor before closing. We did make it to the other floors, and saw beautiful pieces. I think my favorites were the old harpsichords and pianos.
After the museum, we went to go check into Linda's airbnb (she was staying for the night, while I was bus-ing back to Rotterdam). On our walk, we went past the Palais de Bruxelles (Royal Palace of Brussels) and walked right down the middle of the Parc de Bruxelles (Brussels Park).
After checking in, we walked back to the main touristy part of town, and when walking back through the Mont des Arts, we saw it all lit up pretty.
Back in the main part of town, we went to dinner at Rue de la Montagne. After dinner, we walked around and drank extremely cold Starbucks frappuccinos in the cold, before we split off. I bid Linda 'adieu' right outside a street show, and headed back to the train station to catch my 21:10 bus. I finally got back to my apartment a little after midnight.
[Linda] After Shannon left to catch her bus, I stayed and watched the street show, which involved some impressive breakdancing. When they finished, I wandered around the center of town and stopped in at Celtica, an Irish-themed pub with live music. I was able to chat with the performer, Noel Shannon (who was also from Cork!) before he began, and he was very friendly. While at the pub, I met Alex (center), a University of Exeter student studying French and Russian. He introduced me to his friends - (left to right) Rory, Max, Olivia, Hannah, and Christy - who were also University of Exeter students visiting Brussels for the weekend. Excited to meet another anglophone (particularly someone who could pronounce Rory's name), they invited me on their pub crawl. We later visited nearby bars Mezzo and NUA - it was super fun! Afterward, I returned to my Airbnb, which was close to Parvis Marie Louise, and the Exeter students went back to their hostel.
Duane's Day in Rotterdam and Adjacent Areas
[Duane] It took a long time getting out of bed because my apartment is very cold in the morning; it was nice cuddling up in a ball under my blanket for 30 minutes. I didn't have a clear plan for today, besides going somewhere cool around the town. I wanted to eat something warm, so I decided to just head out looking for food.
I had tonkotsu ramen for brunch; it was warming and very tasty. While eating my ramen, the nice weather outside made me want to go see the beautiful nature. I remember hearing that the windmills are cool in the Netherlands, so I googled windmills and found Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk is a village with many 18th century windmills; it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site was an hour subway and bus ride away from the city.
The village was very cute. I walked down a path where you can see the open field, water, windmills; the vibe was very lovely. The walk was about 3 miles long until I found a town where I caught the bus back to Rotterdam.
After my long walk in the cold outdoors, my body was fatigued. I decided to head back home to have dinner and eat Gouda cheese. Today was a very pleasant, chill day.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Linda's Day in Brussels
[Linda] Sunday morning, I began the day by visiting Parvis Marie Louise and Square Frère-Orban, which were very beautiful parks on my route back to the center of town. Back in the center, I ate breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien and then visited Marché des Antiquités du Sablon, an outdoor antiques market next to Église Notre-Dame du Sablon.
From there, I visited the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique and grabbed a waffle afterward. Continuing to wander, I visited Église Sainte Marie-Madeleine and then stopped in De Pistolei to grab a quick bite to eat. I then visited the Maison du Roi, now a museum about the history of Brussels, at the Grand Place and saw the Mannekin Pis.
After, I visited Église Saint Nicolas, la Bourse de Bruxelles (Brussels Stock Exchange) - which was, unfortunately, under construction and closed to tourists - and Hôtel de Ville de Bruxelles (Brussels town hall). To finish my day, I went to dinner at a nearby crêperie, Maison des Crêpes, and grabbed some frites from Fritland for the bus ride back to Rotterdam.
Duane and Shannon's Day in Amsterdam
[Shannon] Today started a little later than yesterday. Duane had made his reservation to the Van Gogh Museum for 10:45 and had taken a train around 9am. I made my reservation later at 11:15, and didn't have any plans before that as my previous day was fairly long. So I hopped on a train around 10, and made my way to Amsterdam Centraal (thank god for the OV-chipkaart and train system). I eventually met up with Duane inside the museum. Photography is not allowed inside the museum, so I unfortunately do not have any pictures for you, but I did see the other Irises painting to pair with this one from the MET (shout out to Professor Harris).
The museum was beautiful, but also extremely busy. When we finally left, the contrast to the business inside the museum and the park was shocking. Last time we passed through the Museumplein it was raining, so it was very nice to be able to walk down the middle of it in some rare sunny weather.
After the museum, we went out for lunch. We found ourselves at Brasserie Bark, a very nice brasserie with plenty of seafood. Duane ordered one of the daily specials, while I ordered salmon (I had been really wanting salmon). For dessert, we split a crème brûlée (part of Duane's Europe dessert bucket list).
After our late lunch, we headed over to our next reservation at the Heineken Experience at 4pm. The Heineken Experience is a museum made from the original brewery before it the main brewery was moved. The museum talks about the companies history as well as the brewing process. It was a very nice museum, but extremely busy.
Following, the Heineken Experience we headed towards the walking path for the Amsterdam Lights Festival. For the past 8 year, Amsterdam has chosen a couple artists to create several light displays all over Amsterdam during the winter months. This weekend was the last weekend of the festival. The whole walking path was 6.3 kilometers long and followed most of the canals. We walked maybe a third of the route before stopping for dinner.
We had dinner at Restaurant Entrepot. It is the type of restaurant that has many small courses, so we did the five course option where the chef chooses for you. First, we started out with bread. I think it was some sort of whole grain sourdough, but it was amazing. I will warn you that my descriptions of the courses will not be accurate and will be missing some details, but I guarantee it was delicious and worth every penny. Oh, I should also comment that the dishes are served in order of temperature, as in they will start cold and then be cooked? The first course had mussels and raw pumpkin, in a fermented pumpkin sauce (maybe?).
The second course base was celeriac, with a creamy herbal sauce and seaweed oil.
The third course was yellow beetroot in a creamy sourish sauce. This was our first dish that was warm, the previous was cooked just served cold.
The fourth course was the main dish, with a piece of venison steak cooked a little more rare than medium rare and a piece of beef from the shoulder area. The shoulder piece did not require a knife at all, it barely stayed together when you stabbed it with a fork (so good!). This course also had some leafy green and some sort of berry compote.
The fifth course was dessert. This one had some warm elements and cold elements. The warm elements was a cooked pear covered in a creamy sauce that is apparently made from sparkling wine. The cold was a Jerusalem artichoke ice cream, which was actually quite savory as well as sweet.
All in all, the way each dish was constructed was fairly similar. I could really tell that they were trying to focus on contrast. A lot of the contrast was brought by the sauce, though most of the dishes had two sauces that would combine into one while you ate (such as the creamy sauce and oil in the second course, and the gravy and compote in the main dish). I really cannot say enough about this meal, and I guarantee that it was a highlight for Duane as well. However, dinner did have to end, and due to the many dishes it was quite a long affair. When we finished eating, we decided to walk straight to the train station. Luckily, the walk back followed the light festival route. We didn't take as much time as before to read all of the posters and take a thousand pictures, but by the time we reached Amsterdam Centraal we had actually walked about half of the route. We got back to Rotterdam Centraal a couple minutes before 11 pm, and split up to get back to our apartments (yay, OV-chipkaart!).
January 20-22, 2020
Monday through Wednesday was business as usual. Show up to work, eat lunch, work some more, go home, cook dinner at my apartment, clean the dishes, everyone splits off and does as they please. We did however finalize travel plans for this coming weekend, as we will all be heading straight to the airport after work on Friday. Duane and I were headed for a fun filled weekend in Berlin, and Linda was headed down to some warmer weather in Milan. We also agreed on making our "experience Rotterdam nightlife" dinners and stuff for Thursday night this week, as we will be on planes Friday night.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
So Thursday was nice, mostly. Well realistically it was very pleasant for everyone but me, I just got a little stressed out.
After work, Duane and I walked back to my apartment. Linda was going to walk back from work with Julius who was coming over for dinner and to go out for drinks (Marko had to work late). While we waited at my apartment, Duane checked in for his flight to Berlin and I tried to do the same. Needless to say, when I didn't get a message to check into my flight, I should've known something was up. I just thought is was a glitch in the Facebook Messenger communication from KLM ("some high tech stuff if you ask me" - Duane). So I tried messaging KLM through Facebook. It was not their system, it was me. I booked my ticket for the wrong weekend!
Initially, Duane and I were planning on going to Berlin this upcoming weekend and Vienna in two weeks, but I accidentally booked my Berlin flight for the Vienna weekend, oops?! I guess Google Flights is amazing, but it is hard to remember to change every detail when jumping between plans. Oh well, although, due to that little discrepancy I was out of a weekend plan, and down some money for the hostel I booked in Berlin. Needless to say, I was stressed. My solution, look into one of my cheaper trips for this weekend: London, Cologne, or places around the Netherlands. At this point, Linda and Julius had arrive and we were in Linda's apartment for dinner (mine was a little messy, and all the food got moved over the day before). While Linda cooked, I booked my train tickets and hostel for Cologne and luckily it was very reasonably price and not as inflated as one might expect for booking within 24 hours of departure. Once dinner was ready, the new plans had been finalized.
Dinner was served (penne a la vodka), and a nice helping of Brie was finished afterwards. During this time we had a very nice conversation, and got a lot of travel advice from Julius. Eventually, we started heading out.
This time we tried a different street past Witte de Withstraat. Nieuwe Binnenweg (New Binnenweg), a street near Duane's apartment, is a pretty popular street for local night life apparently. We stopped at one of the first bars we saw, Rotown, which we found out was also a live music venue. The act for the night was actually and open mic night, and we got to listen to several people. Some of the songs were in Dutch, but most were in English (including "I had a dream" by ABBA). It was a very nice night, and we finally started to wrap it up once the live music had stopped and the disco lights came on. We did have work the next morning. Once outside the bar, we split up and headed back to our apartments. It was probably a little earlier for Duane, but Linda and I arrived at our apartments about 20 minutes before midnight. We said our goodbyes and began preparing for our weekend of travelling.
Links to the places we visited:
Rotterdam
Meent: https://www.cityguiderotterdam.com/shopping/shopping-areas/meent-rotterdam/Nieuwe Binnenweg: https://www.cityrotterdam.com/en/visit/streets-rotterdam/
Brussels
La Grand Place: https://www.brussels.be/grand-place-brusselsGaleries Royales Saint Hubert: https://www.grsh.be/en/home/
Cathedrale des Saints Michel et Gudule: https://cathedralisbruxellensis.be/v1/
Musee des Instruments de Musique: http://www.mim.be/en
Mont des Arts: https://visit.brussels/site/en/place/Mont-des-Arts-Gardens
Palais de Bruxelles: https://www.brussels.be/visit-royal-palace
Parc de Bruxelles: https://visit.brussels/fr/place/Parc-de-Bruxelles-Parc-royal
Parvis Marie Louise: http://www.irismonument.be/fr.Bruxelles_Extension_Est.Square_Marie-Louise.html
Square Frere-Orban: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A8re-Orbansquare
Marché des Antiquités du Sablon: https://markets.brussels.be/markets/sablon-antiques-market
Eglise Notre-Dame du Sablon: https://www.introducingbrussels.com/eglise-notre-dame-du-sablon
Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique: https://www.fine-arts-museum.be/en
Eglise Sainte Marie-Madeleine: https://www.maranatha.be/bruxelles-eglise-ste-marie-madeleine/
Maison du Roi: http://www.brusselscitymuseum.brussels/fr
Eglise Saint Nicolas: http://www.upbxlcentre.be/eglises/saint-nicolas/
Bourse de Bruxelles: https://live.euronext.com/nl/markets/brussels
Hotel de Ville de Bruxelles: https://www.brussels.be/city-hall
More Pictures: https://rotterdam20.blogspot.com/2020/01/brussels.html
Kinderdijk
https://www.kinderdijk.com/discover/the-story/unesco-world-heritage/Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/enHeineken Experience: https://www.heineken.com/nl/agegateway?returnurl=%2fheineken-experience
Light Festival Edition 8: https://amsterdamlightfestival.com/en/edition-8
More Pictures: https://rotterdam20.blogspot.com/2020/01/amsterdam.html
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