Rotterdam

May 11, 2025

I decided not to sleep in Amsterdam, but instead, in the larger port city of Rotterdam. For a few reasons: it appealed more (cheaper hotels, a higher chance of seeing a drum n bass gig, more harbourside spots to admire, less tourists, and recommendations from people I met in Noordwijk and Leiden). Either way, Amsterdam is only a 20-minute train ride away, and the airport is in the middle. And I could always change my mind.

Holland province is amazing in that multiple cities are within a short commute of each other. Imagine having Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and maybe Hamilton all within a short train ride, or even a bicycle ride, of each other? Spoiled for choice - Dutchies in this northern province can choose to reside in one city and work in another, and it has quicker travel times than we have between Wellington city and the Hutt Valley or Kapiti.

So I packed up ‘little blue’ and headed across the road to the station. The trains left every 30 minutes. My hotel was a 10-minute walk from Rotterdam Central and I was soon settled into the final accommodation of my journey. This was not a luxury hotel, it was modest and clean. The selling point turned out to be the view - my window looked directly over the main cathedral of the city, which was bombed in the second world war but one of the only buildings that survived largely unscathed.

Since then, Rotterdam has resprouted as a planned city. And it’s not as pretty as I’d hoped. The scale is off, everything is too large. The streets are too wide, the blockish buildings too high, too utilitarian. I felt like Alice in Wonderland after she drank the shrinking potion. Where in Leiden I had felt completely at ease and at home, in Rotterdam I felt small and insignificant and out of kilter. This feeling added to my homesickness and I spent a lot of time inside this tiny hotel room, listening to Dutch reality TV and news, digesting their throaty accents, feeling Opa with me, and learning quickly to understand quite a bit of what they were saying. I slept. A lot, almost willing the time away as I waited for the final travel day to get back home.

I did venture out, and I had grand plans for my final night which really kept me going. I found a restaurant on my first evening in Rotterdam, called Spirit. I walked past it, but something about it turned me around and I soon warmed myself inside its cosy atmosphere. There was a smorgasbord of salads, about fifty of them. Turns out, precisely fifty, and they change with the seasons and the chefs of the day. It opens every day at 10am. It attracts all types of people, especially singles and older couples. Families too. People spend hours there, reading, writing, drinking cups of coffee and glasses of wine. I could tell straight away there was something special about this place.

Once inside, I took my choices from the smorgasbord and weighed my plate at the counter. The salads are all priced by weight. I took my meal over to a table where I struck up a conversation across the divide with an older gentleman, Karel van Kessell (he gave me his LinkedIn). His acquaintance heard the conversation and joined us. The acquaintance had actually been to Wellington, which must be extremely rare among homeland Dutchies. They were both interested in what I thought about Rotterdam. I was honest. We discussed Spirit and why it had appealed to me. They revealed they were regulars. Karel explained to me that his day job is to show tourists around Rotterdam. My biggest regret is not taking him up on the offer of a tour. But I was tired. And I had already booked in a session with a tattooist the next day around the corner from my hotel.

I didn’t do much else the next day except visit the parlour. I now have a tattoo of a quarter-moon on my back, carefully sketched by a long-haired Dutchman who had spent his prior evening perfecting its partial moonface and shading, just as I had instructed. It didn’t hurt a bit, which means he’s a good artist. Deep down, I knew why I felt so tired. The previous weeks had left me feeling so satisfied that I didn't need any more adventure or excitement. But all that talking and walking and experiencing is a form of exertion. I needed some recuperation, and I missed my family.

Still, I walked the streets for a few hours, ate the best pastries of my life, and saw some new sights. Nothing exceptional, I was still slightly put off by the scale of things there.

For my last night I had planned to go to a rave on the waterfront - it was pretty cool too, a headline artist from the 1990s. Old skool. I bought a ticket, and had my orange outfit, but I struggled to plan my transport there and back, despite getting advice from a local that it was the easiest train trip you could imagine. Uber isn’t really a thing there. The trains are too good!

Something about my tiredness, but also the fear of using public transport at night time in a strange city while alone - the gig started at 11pm and finished at 6am, and I was due to fly out the next evening for a 24+ hour journey in the skies crossing timelines starting at 9.30pm - meant that I gathered my senses and told myself to stay in for the night and rest.

The next morning, ‘home day’, I woke a little jaded but enthused about coming home. I dressed for Kings’ Day. I discarded the final bits of unwanted food and clothing so that little blue was comfortable, checked out for the final time and I hit the streets. Everyone was out, it was crowded from 10am. I visited a few cafes on the way to the station, finding sadly that the cafe I had purchased the best pastry ever was closed because of public holidays, then went directly to the airport on the fullest train imaginable. I ended up skipping Amsterdam altogether. Another regret, maybe, but not under the circumstances.