R'dam hip.

Yesterday we made the journey to The Netherlands' second city, Rotterdam. For those of you that aren't familiar, Rotterdam is the world's second busiest shipping port, (after Shanghai) and has been for 800 years. Pretty impressive for a city that isn't on the ocean! During WWII, Rotterdam was completely flattened by German bombs, and the city has been forced to rebuild most of itself.

For this reason, it was amazing we were only a 20-minute train ride from Den Haag. Nearly everything is so new, and so, so cool. It's as though the intention of the city was to move forward from it's atrocious past by embracing the future. Everything is very angular, very colourful, and not at all shy. The presence of the water and the barges actually felt a lot like Vancouver, But Rotterdam makes Vancouver's architecture look like week-old bread (but we still love you!)


Balance was major theme in the architecture. Nearly every building broke free from the conventional box in exciting and original ways.



The above image is the headquarters for KPN, the Dutch telephone company. Notice how it appears the building is resting on a pole. We were very impressed, but after seeing it, we realized why it costs so bloody much to make a phone call in this country.

The above photo is one of Rotterdam's obvious highlights, the 2600-foot long Erasmus bridge (nicknamed "De Zwann"/the Swan). It is so elegant.

We were admiring a public square when it was suddenly swarmed with hundreds of 14-year old Dutch skater-punks. There was a steady stream of these kids for a good five minutes. We have a short video that I will try to post, as well.


Rotterdam's beautiful, Het Park.

Tragically, I dropped the camera in Het Park, and it's currently out of commission. You, know, just your average stress fracture. We do have hope that it can be repaired, and in the meantime are using Ross' D-SLR. (FYI: I dropped the camera while I was putting the wrist-strap on. My heart is crushed.)