Pick-A-Day

November 2006
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Rotterdam Roundup

My weekend in Rotterdam was full of fun and games.

Saturday I slept in fairly late—until something like 9:30, which left me less than 30 minutes to eat breakfast at the hotel—so I dashed downstairs and ate breakfast before taking a shower and getting set-up for the day.

My day was filled with three fantastic stops.

My first stop was the Netherlands Photo Museum—one of my favorite stops in Rotterdam. Unfortunately the principal special exhibit was one that did not really keep my attention—a retrospective of forty years of Avenue Magazine—a Dutch fashion magazine. There were some interesting aspects to the display, but it was not memorable—unlike some exhibits that I’d seen on previous visits to the museum.

From there I wandered down the street to the Netherlands Architectural Institute, which I had not visited in a very long time—foolishly. The museum is an interesting structure and the featured special exhibit were photographs from the future. I lost a substantial amount of time in the museum. I also found myself going next door to an associated house that was built in the 1920s—a futuristic house with an internal phone system, heated towel racks, large windows, and an American inspired shower with 10 heads: one from above, three from front, back, and side (the fourth side being the door).

Finally, I had decided that I wanted to see “Little Miss Sunshine,” the American comedy about a dysfunctional family. I had initially planned on seeing the film later in the evening figuring I would buy my ticket in the afternoon. When I got to the ticket office at 3:25, I realized the next showing was at 3:30, so I bought a ticket and went in. The film was quite enjoyable and certainly filled with bits of dark humor—Grandpa is a fantastic dirty old man.

My hotel was located a short walk away from there, so I picked up dinner to go from Daily Wok, and then took a two hour nap back in my room. I pretty much killed time from then until just before midnight—taking a shower, getting cleaned up, chatting on the web, and then leaving for the 3 minute walk to the Gay Palace—arriving just before midnight, not getting in until just after midnight but still in time for the pre-midnight entry of 5€ in place of 10€. The Gay Palace was fun—there wasn’t anybody extremely hot—only two people that I thought were sort of cute (and the bartender from last year was there). I took a few breaks, but most of the time I was moving. I’ve sufficiently detached myself from current pop-music and MTV that much of the music was new to me, although there were a few old favorites. I lasted until sometime after 4am, when I made my way back to the hotel and to bed.

I got five hours of sleep.

Unfortunately Sunday was a cold, windy and miserable day in Rotterdam. I ended up making my way to Dudok for a cup of tea and the weekend IHT (oddly, the Netherlands seems to get yesterday’s Guardian. The afternoon was otherwise quiet, spent in my hotel room working on my computer and trying to fix everything into my suitcase. I bought too much shit and did not throw away as much paper as I thought I would.

The evening was fantastic: I met a group of people and went out to dinner at the Hotel New York, which is located across the Maas River from central Rotterdam. The meal was incredible: I had fantastic oysters, awesome scampi, and incredible chocolate cake. It was an enjoyable way to pass three and a half hours.

I had thought about having one last beer out at dè Kameleon, but instead I headed to the hotel and went to bed. I slept like a rock.

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