Friday, January 10, 2020
Our Friday started off the same as our other workdays, but instead of going back to our apartments we went out with some of our coworkers. Duane had gone into work early and decided to leave a little early to walk around, so Linda and I left work with three of our coworkers. Julius and Marko are from Linda's office and Christie is near Duane on the third floor.
We walked to De Witte de Withstraat, a pretty busy street that is filled with lots of restaurants (and after looking it up, also the most famous street in Rotterdam). When looking down the street three things stuck out: all of the people, all of the restaurant awnings and lights, and some string lights that read out some of the roads that intersected the one we were on.
Eventually, we stopped walking around and started looking for a restaurant to eat. We settled on Proeflokaal Reijngoud, a restaurant/bar. We sat down and started looking at the menu, while we waited for Duane to meet up with us. Julius, who is Dutch, translated the menu for Linda and me. After ordering, we continued to talk to our coworkers about the different cultures in the Netherlands and Croatia, as one of our coworkers was from Croatia. Apparently, in the Netherlands, it if very common for companies to go out for drinks after work on Fridays, whether it is at the office or a local bar. However, since Stolt is more of an international-styled company than Dutch, we do not have any specifically organized outings. Though, the bottom floor of the restaurant we were on, did seem to have many businessmen who had just left work. We also learned about some specific foods that we should try such as Bitterballen, a type of fried meat bar food.
After we ate, Christie and Marko had to leave so we walked around with Julius for a bit. We walked from our current street to Coolsingel, which is the major street in Rotterdam with city hall further down from where we were. We decided to go to a specific McDonald's. It is called McDonald's Pavilion and was constructed in 2015 (more information will be provided in the Architecture Series). Needless to say, it was interesting for a McDonald's, but a little underwhelming in comparison to some of the amazing architecture in Rotterdam. After checking to see if there were any Dutch-specific foods at McDonald's that we wanted to eat (there were none), we decided to follow our craving for Stroopwafels to the Markthal.
Once there we purchased some Stroopwafels and walked around the food stalls inside and found ourselves at a cheese stand. A very nice and helpful employee, with wonderful English, was able to enlighten us on some cheese information as well as samples. Did you know that Gouda is a location in Holland that is located between Amsterdam and Rotterdam (and they also have a cheese market on Saturdays)? Shortly after, the Markthal was ready to close, and the super nice lady at the cheese stand gave us her leftover cheese from the samples to take home. Following this, we walked back to the apartment while Julius tried to teach us some Dutch words. Needless to say, we were not very good at it, but now we all know a little bit more.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Saturday started a little early with Duane arriving at our apartments at 7:20 am. Today was our day trip to Antwerp, Belgium! We ordered an Uber to take us to Rotterdam Zuidplein, a 10-minute drive away, so we could catch our 8:10 am bus to Antwerp. The drive was about 90 minutes, and was celebrated with a beautiful sunrise just as we were entering the rural areas surrounding Rotterdam.
A little bit after 9:30 am, we arrived in front of Antwerpen Centraal, which is often considered to be one of the most beautiful train stations in the world. I agree. As such, we decided to go inside and look around.
After some wandering and picture taking, we ended up in a connected cafe, Le Royal Café.
Here, we ate a very nice breakfast before we headed to Meir, the main shopping street in Antwerp that is also filled with several historical points of interest. It was here that we found a Belgian waffle truck, where we got a suikerwafel to split.
We walked for a while and found a beautiful church, De Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk (St. Charles Borromeo Church).
Once we finished looking around the church we continued to wander the streets, we were no longer on the main touristy street (Meir). Eventually, we found our way to the Grote Markt (market square), where the iconic landmark is Standbeeld van Brabo (Brabo's Monument) and Stadhuis van Antwerpen (Antwerp City Hall). Unfortunately, in mid-2018, the restoration of the now 454 years old city hall began. For us, we only got to see a screen with the facade of the building, but I guess I just have another reason to come back. Even though we missed out on the reportedly amazing view of City Hall, the Grote Markt is still surrounded by beautiful architecture which made some great facades and backgrounds for the monument.
We then continued to wander until we made it to Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal Antwerpen (Cathedral of Our Lady Antwerp), the largest Gothic church in the Netherlands (Belgium was a part of the Netherlands until 1830, which included the time that the church was built). Currently, the taller spiral is all wrapped up and surrounded by scaffolding. Even, though it interrupted pictures of the facade, it just gives me more time to buy a wide-angle lens and come back. Other than the spiral, there was no other construction, so we were able to have an uninterrupted look at the interior of the cathedral.
Following our visit to the cathedral, we decided to look for a place to eat. In touristy fashion, we were determined to eat a famous Belgian dish, mussels (and I suppose beer as well). We found ourselves at Grand Café De Rooden Hoed.
After lunch, we decided to split up to visit some museums before they closed. Duane went to visit the Museum aan de Stroom (Het MAS), while Linda and I headed to Rubenshuis (Rubens House).
[Duane] I went to the Museum aan de Stroom. The museum had various cute exhibits, but the highlight of the museum was the architecture and the nice rooftop view of the city. Although it was really cold at the rooftop, I spent a nice 10-ish minutes just staring at the city.
[Shannon] Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish painter during the Baroque period. He was originally born in Germany, but grew up and attended school in Antwerp. Rubenshuis is a museum, of course it was his house, and also displayed many of his original works. We were also able to see some of his larger more intricate works at the churches that we visited earlier. It was inside the museum that we met a Belgian man who suggested we also visited Bruges while we were in the Netherlands. He also pointed out a famous Belgian actor who was at the museum with his family. We stayed in the museum until we were kicked out of the gardens due to the museum closing.
After that, we walked back towards central station to meet up with Duane at our predetermined next locations, the Chocolate Nation! The Chocolate Nation is the largest Belgian chocolate museum in the world, and samples were part of the admissions fee. Once entering the museum, we didn't have to wait long for samples. The very first room had small little milk chocolate beads, free to our disposal. The museum took us through the process of the chocolate making, starting with the harvesting of the cocoa beans. Afterward, it showed us the transportation (on a ship, of course) and the refining process.
After going through, the technical stuff we learned a little bit about the history of Belgian chocolate. Complete, with the discovery of a new chocolate to add to the original three (white, milk, and dark) discovered in 2017. Introduced in 2018, Ruby chocolate is a pink chocolate that is supposedly made from special red cocoa beans that have not been genetically modified.
We also learned how to make the Belgian praline, the classic hard shell soft-centered chocolate, and sampled some as well. Eventually, we made it chocolate heaven, where there are ten different types of chocolate, all warm and melty waiting for us to sample. We were all handed a spoon and went to town.
I personally loved all of them and would be hard-pressed to say which is my favorite. However, based on simple indulgence fantasies, I would say the gold chocolate is my favorite because in addition to the sweet chocolate taste there were also flavors of caramel and toffee, oof so good, but so sweet. I did also think the white chocolate was the best white chocolate I've ever had, but a large part of that was due to the delicious melted form. It really enhanced all of the flavors and was so nice going down. With those two choices I can really see my sweet tooth shining through, but as much as I love sweets it is hard to eat a lot of them, so I also really enjoyed the ruby chocolate. I started of tasting like a super sweet white chocolate with hints of yogurt and raspberry flavors, but it ended with a lovely dark chocolate aftertaste. They say its a new type of chocolate, but I feel like it is really just all three mixed into one with a yummy fruity taste as well.
[Duane] I liked the ruby the most; it had a cute taste.
[Linda] I feel confident in saying that I love all chocolate, so picking a favorite is definitely difficult. However, I think Madagascar was probably the most well-balanced for my tastes.
We finally left chocolate heaven, and entered the gift shop. The gift shop was filled with some of the historic chocolates that we saw in the museum, as well as just generally filled with chocolate. There was also a wall lined with ten candy dispensers, each filled with chocolate chip versions of the samples from chocolate heaven. There was also a chocolate vault, unfortunately it was locked up. I think they stored all of the extra chocolate inside of those little gold bar boxes.
It took us a while to finally leave, but it was only with promises of being back to the gift shop before we leave at the end of February.
After leaving the Chocolate Nation, we decided to look for a place to eat a nice light dinner, as we had just indulged on quite a lot of chocolate and it was getting late. We settled on René.
After finishing our dinner it was just about time to catch our bus. We made it to our bus right around 22:05, when it was supposed to leave. Luckily, it was a little late. The drive back was fairly peaceful, and I managed to fall asleep on the bus when I woke up to yelling. When I woke up we were pulled over on the side of the road about maybe five people were standing up in the back of the bus arguing. We were under 30 minutes away from the bus stop, but we had pulled over for someone to go to the restroom. While we were waiting, it seems the driver decided to make rounds and he discovered that some had already gone to the restroom...on the bus. This prompted the argument that I woke up to. Finally, when things calmed down we got back on the road. Of course we arrived later than planned, but we simply caught an Uber and made it back to our apartments after midnight. We instantly headed up to bed, or in Duane's case, Linda's couch, as we had to be up in about six hours to catch the bus to Amsterdam.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
For today's bus ride, we were leaving out of Rotterdam Centraal. A little bit earlier than the previous day, we hopped on our 7:15 bus and headed to Amsterdam. The bus took us to Amsterdam Sloterdijk, so we decided to take public transportation to Amsterdam Centraal. The trip was a little more convoluted than necessary as Linda purchased a metro day pass when I realized that the machine did not sell an OV-chipkaart, a purchase I had previously decided to make. The OV-chipkaart is good for all of the different types of public transportation throughout the Netherlands including the metro as well as the train system. Obviously, we didn't quite understand how this all worked until Duane and I went to customer service and asked. At this point, we decided to split up to get to Amsterdam Centraal. Linda took the metro and Duane and I took one of the sprinter trains.
Once, we got to Amsterdam Centraal, we just had to wait for all parties to arrive. The first to arrive after us was Max Pierce '20, who we walked across the street to meet at Illy. Max is doing his internship at Marin this winter so he made his way from Wageningen through a connection at Utrecht Centraal. The next to arrive was Linda, followed by Rob Maes '21 who is working at C-Job Naval Architects in Hoofddorp. We talked for a while, and then decided to walk around the city. After walking for a while we decided it may be best to pick a location, so we weren't aimlessly walking around in the rain. We decided to check out a french fry place near the museums as that was our ultimate goal. Unfortunately, the fry place that Rob knew of was closed, so we wound up next door at the Pancake Corner (no complaints here). We all enjoyed a pretty nice brunch before we headed to the museums.
Amsterdam is home to the Dutch national museum, the Rijksmuseum, which was in it's last weekend for the Rembrant Velasquez temporary exhibit. Before going into the Rijksmuseum we decided to walk down to the Museumplein (Museum Square) to check out the other museums first. After a quick lap around Duane decided to see the Mondrians at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, while the rest of us headed to the Rijksmuseum. Splitting off inside the museum for ticket and coat check purposes, we all enjoyed the Rembrant Velázquez exhibit at our own paces. The exhibit was a collaboration with the Prado Museum in Madrid that juxtaposed 17th century Spanish and Dutch paintings. The exhibit featured several prominent pieces by the two namesakes as well as several other prevalent Spanish and Dutch artists.
[Duane] At the Stedelijk Museum, I got to see a lot of cool paintings. They had a special exhibit on Chagall, Picasso, Mondrian and others. I got to see some of the original paintings of Mondrian's color compositions. Although paintings like Mondrian's don't conform to the standard "beauty", they imbue unique feelings and emotions that let you appreciate art in new ways. The Stedelijk Museum was one of the cooler museums that I've been to; it was a fun experience.
[Shannon] After the museums, we met up with Tim Siepmann '17 and went out for dinner. We walked around for a little and found a nice Dutch restaurant, The Copper Kettle, where we tried the Bitterballen previously mentioned.
After dinner, we started walking back to Amsterdam Centraal to catch our bus. Along the way, we lost Rob and Max in a fairly touristy area, and it seems that they decided to enjoy the city a little more as they did not have a time limit. Our time limit, however, was running out. Once we got to Amsterdam Centraal, Duane and I went through with our newly purchased cards and Linda went to purchase her ticket. After waiting a while, Duane and I left to try to catch the leaving train (sorry Linda), but we had just missed it. Instead, we all caught the next train with Tim. Once arriving at Amsterdam Sloterdijk at 18:39 we had exactly one minute to catch our bus. Running ensued, and we made it out to the bus depot to watch our bus drive away. Oops, so we headed back into the train station and decided to learn more about the train system. We found that the fastest way back was to take an intercity train to the airport and then switch to another intercity train back to Rotterdam Centraal. Once back in Rotterdam, we all split up. Duane, now closer to his apartment, walked back. Linda Uber-ed back, and I decided to try out the local public transit and took a metro tram back to the apartment (now I understand the OV-chipkaart, it's pretty nice).
January 13-16, 2020
The rest of the week went by as usual. Chris Johnson '18 returned from Singapore on Monday and we briefly saw him around the office. However, we were able to track him down for a nice dinner on Wednesday at La Pizza Centrum. Other this dinner, our week was fairly uneventful while we geared up for our next adventures over the weekend: Linda and I were headed to Brussels and then it's back to Amsterdam for Duane and me.
Links to the places we visited:
Rotterdam
De Witte de Withstraat: https://www.cityrotterdam.com/en/visit/streets-rotterdam/witte-de-withstraat/Coolsingel: https://www.cityguiderotterdam.com/shopping/shopping-areas/coolsingel-rotterdam/
McDonald's Pavilion: https://www.archdaily.com/640309/mcdonald-s-pavilion-on-coolsingel-mei-architects-and-planners
Antwerp
Antwerpen Centraal: https://www.visitantwerpen.be/en/sightseeing/central-stationMeir: https://www.visitantwerpen.be/en/shopping-zone-meir
De Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk: https://www.carolusborromeus.com/
Grote Markt: https://www.visitantwerpen.be/en/sightseeing/grote-markt
Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedral Antwerpen: https://www.antwerpen.be/nl/info/54eefd73cca8a71a138b4d08/onze-lieve-vrouwekathedraal
Museum aan de Stroom: https://www.mas.be/en
Rubenshuis: https://www.rubenshuis.be/en
Chocolate Nation: https://www.chocolatenation.be/en
More Pictures: https://rotterdam20.blogspot.com/2020/01/antwerp.html
Amsterdam
Museumplein: https://www.amsterdam.nl/oud-zuid/kansenkaart-museumplein/museumplein/Rijksmuseum: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en
More Pictures: https://rotterdam20.blogspot.com/2020/01/amsterdam.html
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