Rotterdam

Woohoo I found a free computer with internet in what seems to be a library... but I'm not quite sure. I'll try to update later with some pictures.

Yan turned out to be an excellent couch surfing host. We got to his apartment just 2 blocks from Rotterdam central station in the evening, and he took us on a walking tour of the downtown area. Later we met the other 2 couch surfers staying with him for a few drinks at a pub. The next day I borrowed Yan's bike, and Eric rented one and we spent all day exploring the city. We went to the Euromast (tallest building in Holland), biked through parks, along the harbor, and explored some galleries and shopping areas.

In the evening we went to the theater festival that was going on all week. There were about a dozen temporary (but very elaborate) theater constructions, and a scalfolding walkway going over the whole thing. We went to one show called "Transformers" which dissapointingly did not involve robots in disguise. 95% of it was in dutch, so I have no idea what it was about. We spent the rest of the time watching the Eurocup football game of Holland vs France in a huge tent with a couple hundred people and a big projector. Earlier in the week we watched Holland beat Italy (who won a couple years ago) 3-0. Again, Holland won (2-0 iirc) and the whole city went NUTS. Every car in the streets was honking, even the busses and trams, and driving illegally in circles. People wearing organge were running, shouting and singing everywhere for about 2 hours after the game.

Yesterday we got up early and took the train to Leiden. Eric is going to work on satelites for Boeing in LA, so he wanted to see the ESA/ESTEC (european space agency) museum. When we got to Leiden, we learned that the busses were on strike. So we rented bikes and rode for about an hour to get to the next town where the museaum was. Turned out to be a very cool space museum, and on Saturdays you can pay a little bit more to have the "space train" take you to the real ESA park and see real satelites being assembled and tested!

Now I'm back in Amsterdam. Last night we stayed in a cabin at a campsite just outside of the city. It was nice, and also cheap, but they charge extra for everything, even toilet paper. Because the busses are on strike, it also took a bit of walking to get to.

Eric left to go home this morning, so from here on out I'm pretty much on my own. I just found a good hostel right downtown and booked two nights. After that I'm headed to Belgium and then Germany.