After Amsterdam, I spent some time visiting friends who I'd visited last I was in Amsterdam, and who now live in Rotterdam. Rotterdam's downtown is full of some crazy cubist buildings and other interesting architecture. It was flattened by Germany during WWII as a way of getting an unconditional surrender out of them. That is, it went roughly like this:
Germany: "Surrender unconditionally, or we'll bomb Rotterdam"
Netherlands: "No"
*Bombed Rotterdam*
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| Rotterdam city center afterwards |
Germany: "Surrender unconditionally, or we'll bomb Utrecht and Amsterdam as well".
Netherlands: :/ Fine.
As a result, they had a lot of city to rebuild. The rebuild was led by an American city-planner, which is who takes the blame/credit for the way it looks now.
Aside: in skimming Wikipedia's entry on History_of_the_Netherlands_(1939-1945), learned some interesting things:
- Amersfoort, which is now a common train stop/change place, was home to a camp.
- Everyone in the Netherlands who was male and between 18 and 45 was forced into manual labor.
- The exiled government of the Netherlands was given the same deal as France, which was to come back and rule as a puppet government. The Prime Minister was interested, but Queen Wilhelmina was having none of it, and dismissed him as a result. Result: entirely German-run Dutch government. [Aside: I had a neighbor from the Netherlands, with two Keeshonds ("Kayz-hond"). One was named Wilhelmina. Is that a proud or mocking thing to do? Unsure.]
Additionally, not about the war:
- It was possible to (almost) make an island out of Holland by destroying dikes and flooding the "polders". (via the "Dutch Water Line". )
- Following various floods, separate governing "water boards" (of people) were set up to oversee the maintenance of the Dutch defenses against water. "Water bodies hold separate elections, levy taxes and function independently from other government bodies. Their function is basically unchanged even today. As such they are the oldest democratic institution in the country." (from Wikipedia's "Flood Control in the Netherlands").
- There's a lot in the flood-control wiki page about the development of dikes, etc in the Netherlands, starting in the 9th Century or so, which I thought was pretty neat. "Current dikes are made with a core of sand, covered by a thick layer of clay to provide waterproofing and resistance against erosion...Up to the high waterline the dike is often covered with carefully laid basalt stones or a layer of tarmac. The remainder is covered by grass and maintained by grazing sheep. Sheep keep the grass dense and compact the soil, in contrast to cattle."(ibid)
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| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
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| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
Apparently one of the apartments is open for viewing, but you can't get up there unless you're nimble, and we were sort of just strolling about, with a stroller (my friends have an infant, who was pretty mellow during our walk in the cold).
Random:
One oldish building was kept up, and turned into the Rotterdam history museum:
The city center also had a "shopping ditch" (for lack of a better translation), which I thought was actually pretty nice when you went in/down.
Here's some nice tradition juxtaposed with new/weird buildings: The stand is for some fried delicacy of the Netherlands, whose name is escaping me. It's not poffertjes. Anyway, this is apparently (one of?) the best such stand around. It would totally fit in at the Hamburger Dom:
Another view of the same square/open area:
And another. The red lanterns were due to a chinese-themed something-or-other happening in town at night, starting about when I rolled into town. Here's a website about it. Apparently it continues until Valentine's day.
The big, factory-esque building in the background of the next picture is the Rotterdam library.
It reminded me of the Bielefeld university building, inasmuch as the theme for both were "Factory"; I think the library in Rotterdam succeeded at interpreting the theme a bit more cheerfully.
The stuff going on in the mid and foreground are a market of sorts, selling everything from fabric (presumably, by the meter) to fruits and vegetables, christmas trees/wreaths, and the same amazing/terrible stockings-paired-with-matching skirt that were patterned like a Granny/Christmas sweater, but with a feel of 80s videogames (I think the black background and bright colors are what made me think this).
To be honest, I put off writing about the trip as I had a bit of a grumpy ride home. Travelling (in the winter, in Europe) is not always sunshine and rainbows.
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The ride home. Here are a few things that happened:
After two transactions in Amsterdam, my bank locked my EC(i.e. debit) card, which I wasn't sure about until the day I was heading back to Germany. I'd taken out enough cash before the trip, so it wasn't a big deal, until...
By then, I had 4 euros on me, and became certain my card was locked when it wouldn't run at Starbucks at the station (I was going to get a little hot chocolate to pass the time). I didn't call my bank, as their customer service is something like 10 cents per minute (unlike the states, I have yet to see a customer support number that's free) and probably doesn't speak English, at least as late at night as I realized it.
Also, due to the delay, the train would put us in Hamburg after the U-Bahn lines stopped running and the only transit was the night buses, which only ran once per hour. So, I'd have to hail a cab (which I wasn't sure DeutscheBahn'd pay for), and me with only 4 euros on me. I figured, well, I'm going to have to (cross my fingers that it works and) use my American ATM card to withdraw enough cash to hire a cab.
I was getting a bit worked up, and the train finally got there. I boarded the (correct) train, and started freaking out because they kept announcing that it was (only) going to Dortmund, and another delayed train *also* going to Dortmund was leaving on the same tracks, so I was worried that I'd messed up. At the 1st stop (Essen), I leaned my head out and realized I was on the correct train after all, so sat back down. When a conductor (Schaffner) went by, I asked about it and he said we had to cross over to another train in Dortmund. I *had* remembered correctly, and our train was originally supposed to be two pieces, and here was the second half. I don't know what the people inside the train already have been through, but hopefully they were in the cozy train for the 80 minutes instead of out on the tracks.
At the end of all this, DeutscheBahn did in fact pay for a cab for all of us to get home. That was pretty great. Once in the cab, when I had to open my mouth to direct the driver to where I needed to go, the driver called me out as American in no time flat. He told me he liked the US, and the 'lifestyle'. I said I didn't, but was too tired to say anything else.
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Amusingly enough, we had just discussed the preceding week in my German class what to do when you're on the wrong train, and what happens when the train is delayed (you get to fill out a form with rather vague statement/questions in German to answer).
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| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
One oldish building was kept up, and turned into the Rotterdam history museum:
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| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
The city center also had a "shopping ditch" (for lack of a better translation), which I thought was actually pretty nice when you went in/down.
 |
| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
Here's some nice tradition juxtaposed with new/weird buildings: The stand is for some fried delicacy of the Netherlands, whose name is escaping me. It's not poffertjes. Anyway, this is apparently (one of?) the best such stand around. It would totally fit in at the Hamburger Dom:
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| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
Another view of the same square/open area:
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| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
And another. The red lanterns were due to a chinese-themed something-or-other happening in town at night, starting about when I rolled into town. Here's a website about it. Apparently it continues until Valentine's day.
 |
| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
The big, factory-esque building in the background of the next picture is the Rotterdam library.
It reminded me of the Bielefeld university building, inasmuch as the theme for both were "Factory"; I think the library in Rotterdam succeeded at interpreting the theme a bit more cheerfully.
The stuff going on in the mid and foreground are a market of sorts, selling everything from fabric (presumably, by the meter) to fruits and vegetables, christmas trees/wreaths, and the same amazing/terrible stockings-paired-with-matching skirt that were patterned like a Granny/Christmas sweater, but with a feel of 80s videogames (I think the black background and bright colors are what made me think this).
 |
| From Amsterdam Dec 2012 |
To be honest, I put off writing about the trip as I had a bit of a grumpy ride home. Travelling (in the winter, in Europe) is not always sunshine and rainbows.
===================
The ride home. Here are a few things that happened:
After two transactions in Amsterdam, my bank locked my EC(i.e. debit) card, which I wasn't sure about until the day I was heading back to Germany. I'd taken out enough cash before the trip, so it wasn't a big deal, until...
I took the train at 6pm or so out of Rotterdam. The first train was fine and good, and I ended up in Duisburg, waiting for my next train. DeutscheBahn had some signal outages (which I was told are quite common -- is this part of the trains not being weatherproof?), which created a final delay on my train by 80 minutes. It was, of course, the last train to Hamburg from Duisburg.
By then, I had 4 euros on me, and became certain my card was locked when it wouldn't run at Starbucks at the station (I was going to get a little hot chocolate to pass the time). I didn't call my bank, as their customer service is something like 10 cents per minute (unlike the states, I have yet to see a customer support number that's free) and probably doesn't speak English, at least as late at night as I realized it.
Also, due to the delay, the train would put us in Hamburg after the U-Bahn lines stopped running and the only transit was the night buses, which only ran once per hour. So, I'd have to hail a cab (which I wasn't sure DeutscheBahn'd pay for), and me with only 4 euros on me. I figured, well, I'm going to have to (cross my fingers that it works and) use my American ATM card to withdraw enough cash to hire a cab.
At the end of all this, DeutscheBahn did in fact pay for a cab for all of us to get home. That was pretty great. Once in the cab, when I had to open my mouth to direct the driver to where I needed to go, the driver called me out as American in no time flat. He told me he liked the US, and the 'lifestyle'. I said I didn't, but was too tired to say anything else.
====================
Amusingly enough, we had just discussed the preceding week in my German class what to do when you're on the wrong train, and what happens when the train is delayed (you get to fill out a form with rather vague statement/questions in German to answer).
