Scheveningen & Rotterdam

For the final day of Roxi's conference in Rotterdam, she was scheduled to present her research before the conference adjourned shortly after noon. Since it has warmed up in the Netherlands, I've been wanting to make a trip to one of the many beaches on the North Sea. Roxi wasn't as interested so I decided to use our last morning in Rotterdam to make the short train ride to The Hague and visit the most famous beach in Holland.

We awoke to what looked like a pretty nice day in Rotterdam, but we have learned from our time here that the weather really can change quickly. During the forty or so minutes of our breakfast, clouds rolled in and it started to rain. The heavy rains started falling just as we began our walk to the city. We parted ways after crossing the Maas River, Roxi continuing on to the conference while I hurried to catch a train to The Hague. I arrived in time for a train but the ticket machines were not it the usual place at the Rotterdan Blaak station, so in the time it took me to locate them, my train left. Fortunately, the next train was only about thirty minutes later, so my wait wasn't long.

As another illustration of the quickly changing weather in Holland, by the time my train left the underground station, the sun was shining brightly. In fact, in the entire thirty minute train ride to The Hague, there was barely a cloud in the sky. I arrived at Den Haag Centraal at about 11:30 AM and immediately caught a tram heading for Scheveningen, the famous seaside district of the city. I was determined to get back to Rotterdam shortly after the conference ended so, I set a time limit for myself to admire the beach. I took a short walk along the shore before retracing my steps back to Rotterdam. I'm very glad that I made the quick trip so that I could have the experience of seeing a Dutch beach.


Scheveningen Beach and the North Sea


Scheveningen Beach


Scheveningen Pier


Kurhaus

My trip back to Rotterdam was uneventful and I was able to rendezvous with Roxi at the restaurant in the Golden Tulip Hotel. We decided to have lunch before starting our return journey to Enschede. Always one to try local cuisine, I ordered the kapsalon which was listed as a traditional Rotterdam dish. The description made it sound like a big sandwich so I was very surprised to see a large scoop filled with fries, chicken, lettuce and cucumbers covered with melted cheese!


Kapsalon: Rotterdam's version of the KFC Famous Bowl.

After lunch, we walked back to Cherrycake & Chocolate for the last time and had a wonderful afternoon tea with the owner. After being suitable stuffed with kapsalon and cake, we gathered up our things and made the short walk back to the train station. On our way we had time get some pictures of one more architectural marvel before leaving Rotterdam: Kubuswonig (Cubic Houses).


Kubuswonig (Cubic Houses)


Kubuswonig (Cubic Houses)


Kubuswonig (Cubic Houses)


Kubuswonig (Cubic Houses)

Rotterdam

We've been very busy over the past two weeks! Between Roxi's colleague Sergio visiting from Italy last week and us spending several days in Rotterdam and Amsterdam so that Roxi can make some presentations of her research, there has been very little free time. During our non-travel days in between all of these things, we've been packing up our apartment for our move back to the United States. Things have been going very well, but needless to say, it hasn't left a lot of spare time for blogging. Right now we are in Amsterdam for the Cognitive Science Conference but Roxi's not feeling well and I could honestly use a night off of doing much else. I thought that now might be the perfect time to catch up on blogging about our travels.

Last Sunday afternoon, we took the train from Enschede to Rotterdam which was just about a three trip. Roxi had done the hotel research several weeks prior to our trip and picked out a bed and breakfast a little south of the city center on the Noordereiland (North Island) in the Maas River. Our walk from the train station was pretty easy and Cherrycake & Chocolate turned out be a beautiful bed and breakfast with a wonderful river view.


The view from one of our windows in the English Room at Cherrycake & Chocolate.

After getting some suggestions from the owners, Roxi and I walked to the south bank of the Maas and then followed the signs to the Hotel New York, the one-time headquarters of the Holland-America shipping line that took Dutch emigrants to New York City. Along the way, we admired the modern architecture of the city including the famous Erasmusbrug (Erasmus Bridge). After dinner at the hotel restaurant, we took a leisurely stroll back to the bed and breakfast where we could get some rest before a long day on Monday.


KPN Telecom Building


Erasmbrug (Erasmus Bridge) from the south.


Erasmbrug (Erasmus Bridge) from the west.


Hotel New York (Holland-Amerika Lijn Building)


Hotel New York (Holland-Amerika Lijn Building)


Erasmbrug (Erasmus Bridge) from the west.

Monday was a full day of conference proceedings for Roxi so after a light breakfast, we made the walk to the Golden Tulip Hotel for the Society for Text & Discourse conference. While Roxi attended early morning talks, I walked to the park a few blocks away and slowly made my way back to the hotel to meet Roxi for lunch.


Golden Tulip Hotel


Montevideo Building dwarfing the Hotel New York.


Erasmusbrug (Erasmus Bridge) from the west on the north side of the Maas River.

Roxi and I met for a nice lunch at an outdoor cafe on the banks of the river. The skies were clear and the day was warm so it was a very pleasant time to be outside. After lunch, Roxi returned to the afternoon portion of the conference while I walked to the Euromast to get a birds-eye view of the city.


Euromast


Rotterdam

Later that afternoon, Roxi and I met back at the conference for the final talk of the day followed by an evening dinner cruise on the China Boat. The Netherlands has quite a bit of Chinese and Indonesian food in its cuisine because of their colonial history in southeast Asia. The China Boat took us all around the harbors of Rotterdam for three hours while we enjoyed a Chinese buffet. We ended our night after the dinner cruise as Roxi was scheduled to present her research early the next morning.