The Simontist

Koninginnedag!

Say it after me…”CONE…ING…IN…A…DA…GHGHGHGHGH”. Yeah, maybe it’s a little easier to say “Queen’s Day”, if you’re not used to the Dutch pronunciation of the letter g. April 30th is a day when the Netherlands, and especially Amsterdam, goes wild. In recent years, Den Haag has joined the party, but not wanting to force people to choose between it and Amsterdam (it would always lose), it has a party the night before. What is this called? Inventively, it is “Koninginnenacht” (Queen’s Night).

My story begins on Queen’s Night, joining a few friends to a party in Delft which, almost blasphemously, had a Belgian theme. Like all things Belgian it involved fatty, delicious food, many varieties of high-alcohol beers, and frites (these ones were cooked in the traditional beef fat). This great party was our warm up, and we moved into Den Haag to catch some of the big multi-stage music festival that was happening in the city centre. We managed to catch Boo Boo Davis, an American blues master. Definitely worth seeing! Here is me with two of my classmates and friends, Carlos and Esther.

We decided to be smart, and head home for rest so that we could get the most out of Queen’s Day the following day. Some younger, fitter and perhaps sillier people try to merge Queen’s Night into Queen’s Day without a break, but I’m a little too old for that nonsense (you kids get off my lawn!). Our rest paid off, and we were able to contrast ourselves to some poor soul on the train the next day at 10am…here’s Verena and the guy, who had clearly not slept. Occasionally his eyes would open and he would look around in confusion. He made it to Amsterdam alive though!

Once in Amsterdam we were able to see the more relaxed side of Queen’s Day. In the morning, children and adults alike set up blankets with things they want to sell, like a city-wide flea market. We were able to wander around in the wonderful sunshine, and the atmosphere was very friendly and relaxed.

It didn’t take long for people to come out on boats, and some of them were very prepared, with beer coolers, large sound systems, and lots and lots of people. You may have noticed by this stage that orange is the national colour…

Things were getting busier. We decided to head over to our Dutch classmate Jasper’s mojito and caipirinha stand, and have a drink in the sun. Jasper and his friends were capitalising on the fact that every single person in Amsterdam on this day totally ignores the city-wide ban on drinking in public. Jasper’s business was already thriving - I cannot stress how lucky we were with the weather! Below is the drinks stand (Jasper is on the left, muddling), and Verena and Esther sitting by a canal in the sun.

Next is where things get a bit more hectic. In the early afternoon, the flea market packed up, people hid their children, and the orange-covered lunatics began to get into the spirit of things. The narrow streets got a little more difficult to navigate.

The party really hit its straps late afternoon, and I managed to meet up with some Kiwi friends, Nadine and Dave. My Leiden colleagues decided to make a run for the trains before a few million people had the same idea, but I decided to stay in Amsterdam, as it was a rare chance to hang out with these two! 

Here is a picture of the absolute peak:

So after wandering around and enjoying a few more beers with Dave and Nadine, I gladly accepted the offer of sleeping on the couch at their place (the train station would have been a nightmare) and we began the trek back. The only obstacle: Dam Square (Amsterdam’s busiest place!). By this stage people were looking a little worse for wear, and there was quite a bit of rubbish around.

We made it though! A big thanks to my kiwi friends for letting me stay over. Due to the early nature of the event, we were all tuckered out at about 10, and went off to sleep. At about 6am I got up and took the tram towards the train station. I was amazed at how far the cleanup had come (all tram tracks were cleared of glass and rubble, and people were going to work like nothing had happened). Men in fluorescent overalls were everywhere, directing the cleaning crew.

I jumped on a train to meet Allison at Schiphol airport. I wandered around Schiphol like a zombie, and bought a croissant (for me) and some flowers (for Allison). The florist took pity on me and forgave my tired switching between Dutch and English. Unfortunately Allison missed all of the Queen’s Day action, but it was great to have her back, and I definitely had some stories to tell!

Edinburgh

I didn’t have a ton of time to spare in Edinburgh, but I think I made a pretty good effort at exploring the city. I had seen a little of the city on the night before the Skye trip, but this time had booked into a smaller hostel - the ‘Bus Stop Backpackers’ which described itself as the smallest and highest-rated backpackers in Edinburgh. Worth a shot, eh?

After arriving on the bus, I said goodbye to my fellow tour-goers (but not with too much sadness…we made a plan to meet up again for a beer that evening!) and wandered across town to my accommodation. It was definitely in a cool area - the New Town of Edinburgh. By new, they mean that construction started in the late 18th century. You know, just about 70 years before Wellington existed. 

The hostel was indeed tiny (maximum capacity of 18 I think!) and felt more like a flat than anything. It had a lovely wee kitchen and a very relaxed atmosphere. Plus free breakfast - score! After a whipping up some pasta and a salad, I showered and wandered down to the famous Grassmarket to grab a beer with my new tour buddies. The old (or is that olde? when is something old enough to justify the e?) pubs were nice, but we had a tip to head to a craft beer pub called BrewDog for some serious beer. Initial signs were promising:

Yes - that says “No football! No shots! No Stella! But we do have board games”. Indeed they had hundreds of bottled beers, plus all of their own beers on tap. I must admit I felt a twinge of pride when I saw some familiar labels from NZ - Yeastie Boys, 8 Wired and Renaissance, if I recall correctly. But who goes to Edinburgh to drink NZ beer? I wanted their own stuff, and the best way to do that was to choose 4 beers and get a taster board. Heaven!

After that I decided to be responsible, and head back home, with the intention of going on the ‘free’ guided walking tour the next day. My efforts paid off, as I woke up feeling rosy, and the weather was not too bad either. The tours left from outside Starbucks (who must LOVE the hordes of people needing a coffee to wake up before the tour). By the way, I put ‘free’ in inverted commas because it’s one of those deals where you technically don’t have to pay the guide, but of course everyone does. It’s their job, and they’re good at it. The tour was not exactly a seat-of-your-pants thrill ride, but it did give me a very good overview of the history of the city, and helped me get my bearings and know my way around. I saw the main tourist sighs, such as: The Castle…

The mound and University Buildings…

and the Princes Street gardens.

A highlight of the tour was perhaps when we were asked to form groups based on our home countries, for a quick quiz. I (jokingly!) said “Hey, I don’t really feel comfortable joining the Australian group” and a man from Melbourne, perhaps 60 years old, reacted badly, yelling: “Up your bum then!” - at which point he realised what he had said (and perhaps also that I was joking), covered his mouth, and no more words were spoken. 

After three hours of walking, I needed some food and a sit down, so headed back to the backpackers. I was informed however that the weather on the following day was predicted to be horrible, so figured it was now or never for Arthur’s Seat - the huge volcanic crag overlooking the city. Off I went, and of course inadvertently took the longest, steepest route possible. Along the Salisbury Crags I went climbing ever higher, and then back down for a while, before climbing about a billion steps to the top, where it hailed on me. Ah, Scotland. Still, it was a stunning walk. Let’s sit in silence and look at five photographs:

In order, that is 1) up on the crags, 2) looking up the cliff face towards Arthur’s Seat, 3) Looking over the back of the crags, from near the top, 4) Looking towards the city from Arthur’s Seat and 5) looking towards the sea from Arthur’s Seat.

That night I think I was too tired to attempt any socialising - my body, brain and liver needed a break. I slept like a baby. The next day was my last day in Edinburgh, and I spent it being relaxed…I checked out the National Museum of Scotland, ate at a fancy (but somehow ridiculously cheap) restaurant for lunch, saw the National Portrait Gallery, and had a beer with an Australian girl from the hostel who was at the end of her trip, and was ready to go home. My time in Edinburgh was also up.

I got the prime (front-top-window) seat on the double-decker airport bus, and spent the trip to the airport wondering when I would get the chance to come back. I don’t know why I felt such an attachment to Scotland. I like to think that it’s my partial Scottish heritage, or just the respect I felt after seeing the type of landscape, weather and fighting that the Scots have had to endure for hundreds of years. But who knows. Maybe I just felt like I was back in Wellington, surrounded by pale legs, self-deprecating humour and wild skies.

A Wee Dram of Scotland

I got pretty lucky with Scotland. What started out as a poorly-organised attempt at visiting friends in Edinburgh actually turned out to be an action-packed whirlwind tour of the highlands and the Isle of Skye. Like an idiot, I booked flights before asking my friends Ned and Rachael if I could stay. Of course, they would have let me stay if they had been there, but they were in fact moving away a couple of weeks before I was to arrive. Faced with the prospect of 5 days in a backpackers’ in Edinburgh, I decided I would find a way to see more of Scotland. A little internet searching and a credit card payment later, and I was booked into the MacBackpackers 3-day Isle of Sky tour.

This tour involved driving from Edinburgh through Inverness, along Loch Ness, and up to the Isle of Skye. Two nights were spent on the Isle of Skye in a house owned by the hostel there, with just the tour people staying. The final day involved a drive through Glencoe and past the Nevis Range, back to Edinburgh.

Rather than explaining the tour step by step, I’ll just upload a bunch of pictures after this post,to give you a taste of what it looked like. But I will say that it was very much worth the price. We had a great tour guide, Richard, who had a filthy mouth but was very knowledgeable and passionate about Scotland’s history, folklore, wildlife and geology, and also had a great sense of humour. We travelled in a group of about 20, which was a pretty good size, and there were plenty of new people to meet. Here’s Richard, kilt & all, explaining to us what a cairn is:

One highlight of day 1 was visiting Culloden Battlefield, site of the battle between the Jacobites and the English, and where the Jacobites were totally outnumbered and were totally wiped out. After the battle began the ‘Highland Clearances’, where Scottish Highlanders were cleared from their villages and many things Scottish (kilts, bagpipes etc) were banned, to stop any further uprisings against the English. The battlefield was a grim place, but conveyed how strongly the Scottish people feel about their homeland.

Another highlight was my quick dip in Loch Ness. About 6 of us managed to jump into the icy water, spurred on by Richard’s claims that when we were old and telling this story to our grandchildren, what would we say when they asked us if we swam in Loch Ness? Could we really look a child in the eye and lie to them? Oh, he also offered us a gulp of whisky if we did it…

We also stopped at some 4000 year old burial cairns (oh, a cairn is a ceremonial pile of rocks!), Killiecrankie (where another famous battle took place - this time the Scots won), some old ruins, and had a stunning drive through the highlands. We were rewarded with an amazing place to stay - here’s the view out the window from my room!

Day two was filled with rivers that improve your complexion, waterfalls that improve your libido, a mountain walk, seaside cliffs, a visit to an enchanted glen, and finally fresh prawns, local real ale and live music at the bar. You couldn’t ask much more from a day. Skye was totally impressive - more pictures will be in the gallery but for now here’s me improving my complexion, plus a view from the mountain walk.

The final day meant we had to say goodbye to Skye, but there was plenty more in store. We saw the castle that was used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, hairy cows (or as they would say in Scotland, hairy coos), the William Wallace monument looking out towards Stirling Castle, the Nevis Range and Ben Nevis (Great Britain’s highest mountain), Glencoe (where, shamefully, my ancestors’ clan, the Campbells, assisted in murdering their fellow Scots in their sleep!) and lots more wonderful scenery. Below is Eilean Donan castle, a hairy coo and the view from the Wallace Monument.

So after some more photos, I will describe my time in Edinburgh too. And after that, I can tell you all about Koninginnedag (Queens Day) in Amsterdam which was an experience I will not soon forget!

Brighton (And a bit more of London)

“Do you know…Lydia from Pride and Prejudice was seduced by Mr. Wickham in Brighton…be careful.”

This was the (obviously tongue in cheek) text message I received from Allison when I told her I was on the train to Brighton. I had taken a chance on the weather - the forecast was something like “Scattered showers with fine spells. Chance of thunderstorms” which is weatherman-speak for “I’ve absolutely no idea”. Or maybe “A bit of everything”. In actual fact, the weatherman was right. Here’s the scene when I arrived:

And here’s the view looking in the other direction, from the pier 15 minutes later:

I did actually manage to stay dry throughout the day - Brighton is a very walkable place, and because it’s full of so many wee lanes and shops, there is always somewhere to dive into if it pours down. I wandered around for the first hour or so, checking out the sights. Here is the pier, which reminded me of Coney Island - an impressive landmark that is getting a little tired and seedy:

On the pier I played a couple of 20p horse race games, but saved the rest of my money for food. It would be a little silly to travel all that way to blow my money on pokies! I ambled back down the pier, and ducked into the tourist office to avoid a brief downpour. Next up was the Royal Pavillion. It is a neat building, but I wasn’t in the mood for a tour.

I was more interested in wandering around the little narrow streets, and checking out the shops and galleries. So that’s exactly how my afternoon was spent. I got myself some Brighton Rock, and bought a nice coffee, and generally just moseyed around the place being a tourist. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of the place:

I really didn’t expend much energy at all, but still somehow wound up quite tired, and headed back to London to rest up for the evening, in preparation for my last half day in London and the trip to Scotland. 

Borough Market was my destination for the last morning, which was a real highlight. Stalls were selling all kinds of meat, cheese, coffee, beer & wine, fruits and vegetables, smoothies, cider, pastries, cookies, bread…you name it. My food-obsessed brain was in overload, trying to comprehend if it would be possible for me to live as close as Glen to this place without going bankrupt! I picked myself up a hot mulled cider and a wild pork sausage in a bun to warm myself up, and spent an obscene amount of time lurking around in the market. Check out London’s new skyscraper ‘The Shard’ looming above the market stalls in the third picture:

Before I left the market, I had a short wander around the area, and came across another amazing part of London’s past. To the untrained eye, this sign looks like a patriotic wartime message to keep up morale. A little Googling however, and I found out that ‘take’ in this sense is the verb usually used for medicine, and courage is in fact Courage…..beer! So what appears to be a stirring reminder of the London Blitz is actually an old ad for booze. Lovely. I’d like to think it inadvertently served a more noble purpose than marketing during darker times in the city, but who knows.

That’s enough for now, eh? Next up…Scotland!

London!

Last time I went to London, I was 12. I have vague memories of pigeons, the tube, and Phantom of the Opera. But I figured London might have changed a little since 1995, so I thought I’d better head back and check it out. Luckily my friend Glen lives there, and kindly offered me an air mattress and his local knowledge! I was excited to be staying in Peckham, which Wikipedia kindly describes as  ”a high-crime area with high levels of gang violence, for which it has a notorious reputation”. (To be fair I didn’t see any of that - I felt quite safe, and I thought the neighbourhood looked quite nice!)

I arrived on a Saturday evening thanks to my second “Oh hello, your flight is cancelled” text message. I managed to re-book through the British Airways website for a few hours later. Whew! Then just over an hour waiting in line at Heathrow Airport, and I was in. What was to be the best weather of my trip greeted me:

I also felt required to take a photo of the double-decker buses, and the Telephone boxes (or as Londoners call them, homeless men’s urinals). I’m not sure how much use the telephone boxes get, but it’d be a shame to get rid of them, right? Personally I think they should keep them as empty boxes, where you can go to talk on your cellphone in peace. Or perhaps they should take cues from the homeless, and be converted to real urinals? Anyway, here it is:

Let’s also skip right through the Big Ben & Buckingham Palace stuff. 

My favourite part of seeing Buckingham palace was not the palace itself, but the tourists. Gold! Check out the pose-faces, and the guy with the M&M store bag & Union Jack suitcase. He might as well be holding a sign saying “I’m a tourist, I have money - please rob me!”

So, after a whirlwind tour of the sights (alongside a billion other people, as it was Easter weekend and school holidays), we headed out to a wonderful dinner out in Twickenham. I was treated to some Irish hospitality, which involved new beers appearing in front of me before I had finished the last one. Needless to say, I was lucky the food quantity matched the alcohol quantity! The next day I felt ok, but Glen was not so lucky. Due to his ingrained Kiwi hospitality though, he came out with me, hungover and in the pouring rain, to check out the British Imperial War Museum.

If you think that this is not a museum that people would drag very young children to in the school holidays, you’d be wrong. The museum was very impressive, but being surrounded by both the reality of war and the screams of a thousand bored children made for a sombre afternoon. That was about all we were capable of that day!

The next day Glen had to work, and the weather was again fairly grim, so I did a museum marathon. I got to the Natural History museum at opening time, so that I could see the ‘Animal Inside Out’ exhibition, which is ‘plastinated’ animals (from the guy who brought us’Body Worlds’). It was short, but impressive. It’s not every day you see the inside of an elephant. I moved through the museum, then to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum, which had amazing things from all over the world (including real ninja swords!). Here is the Natural History museum from the outside, and the V&A from the courtyard.

I realise the weather looks nice, which is really making me look silly. You’ll have to believe me that it was very cold, and usually raining, with some intermittent blue sky. Anyway, I had one last museum that I wanted to see. Unfortunately by this stage, every child in London had finally got dressed and brushed his teeth, and Dad had brought him along to press buttons at the Science Museum. I did get to sneak a peek at a few things though, such as this great old combine harvester, which brought back memories of the farm.

I decided to keep the tourist marathon going, and check out a few more things; this time it was food I was interested in. The iconic Harrods department store was stop #1. It was fancy, I will give it that. But after walking past a grown woman having a tantrum about being unable to find pink drinking straws, I realised that this was not the crowd for me. The wealthy, spoiled and rude people put me off (plus the prices - one box of tea was selling for £44), so I headed to Neal’s Yard Dairy instead. Being surrounded by incredible cheese brought me back to life, and I bought a slab of tangy mature cheddar to take back to my host and his flatmates. Yum. We enjoyed it that night with a pint of real ale. That’s one thing you don’t get in the Netherlands - a proper-sized beer!

In the next post I’ll describe my trip to Brighton, and my experience back in London at the wonderful Borough Markets. But I will leave you with a picture of my favourite building in London - the decommissioned Battersea Power Station, as made famous by Pink Floyd on the cover of Animals:

A Weekend in Lille: The second 24 hours

La Piscine is one of the coolest museums/galleries that I have been to. The building itself is an Art Deco swimming pool dating from around 1930. The entire inside has been restored, and most of the pool has been filled, so that it can house sculptures. We took the metro out to Roubaix; the metro system seemed to be the opposite of Vieux Lille - a bit shady, with a young beggar trying to tell us how to buy a ticket in exchange for money, and its fair share of dodgy characters in general. But the system worked well, and was easy to navigate. We arrived in Roubaix, and a few minutes from the station saw the impressive entrance:

And once inside, it was even more impressive. The renovation work had been done amazingly, and there were huge stained glass windows pouring yellow light over the main pool.

There was an exhibition on about a photographer who documented Picasso, with many photographs, and the original art works that were in them. The museum itself was, like many museums in Europe, too much to see in one day. But we saw what we could!

We metroed back to Lille, in time to see the early evening spectacle that is the Grand Place. Young people everywhere, and a crazy amount of expensive vehicles - Lamborghinis, Porsches, and other luxury cars being driven by what looked like men in their mid 20s! As well as that, revving motorbikes to the redline seemed to be a fun pastime, with many new and shiny motorbikes passing through. We shot back to the hotel to figure out what to do next.

The very friendly man at the desk in our hotel had advised us that 7pm was far too early to try and find a place to eat. His suggestion was that we go between 8pm and 11.30pm, as that is when most people would be eating. He also gave us a suggestion for a great restaurant close to the hotel (and even his favourite dish!). With this in mind, we went to go check out a free concert in the Place de la Republique, a short walk away, with the goal of coming back later to eat. A band called the General Elektriks were playing, and it was packed. The music was good, but not spectacular (perhaps our opinions were skewed by the previous night’s concert) and after about an hour we left to eat. I was very hungry by this stage, and overly excited about ordering a rich, fatty, delicious French meal.

“Sorry, but the kitchen is closed”.

I was crushed. This was just after 10pm, well in the time window we were advised of. It looked like the other places around were switching from restaurant mode to bar mode too. I was despondent. The only place that was obviously still serving food was the Turkish kebab place by the hotel. So we ordered there - Allison was completely happy with the choice, but I was almost inconsolable. I had the little folded piece of paper in my hand with the restaurant name, and the dish - duck with thyme. 

Luckily for us, the next day was a total culinary explosion. It more than made up for the previous night’s disappointment. Sunday morning began with breakfast at the hotel (including crepes!), and then a short walk to the ‘posh’ market. And what a market it was - roasted meats, paella, a huge cheese stand, seafood, lots and lots of vegetables, sweet waffles, nuts, sausages…I was in heaven. The bakeries nearby were open too!

We bought a few delicacies to take back (see the end of this post for the picture), and then went to market #2: the Marché de Wazemmes. This market is the ‘big daddy’ market of Lille, full of crafts, bric-a-brac, hot food, cold food, and also had a covered part where the artisan things were sold. It was fun looking around (and again the weather was brilliant). We decided to order a Flamiche (or is it Tarte Flamiche?), which is like a cheesy (and I mean CHEESY!!!) pizza with white sauce instead of tomato sauce. The guy who was making them in his caravan was clearly a master of his craft, and also a bit of a funnyman, although we couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying. I ordered in my meagre French, and another customer managed to get through to us that we needed to come back in 30 minutes. We left, not sure if we had actually ordered, but lo and behold, upon return we were handed a wonderful looking tart, which could probably be best described as a (delicious) ‘fat bomb’. I could see why it was so popular on a Sunday morning.

Full of energy of the short-term type, and having explored two markets already, we decided to stroll and digest for the rest of the afternoon. The sun was shining, and there were plenty of beautiful places to sit. We had some gelato outside the Lille Opera, and sat on the steps people-watching. And finally, it was time to collect our bags and head home.

There was one small hiccup on the return journey. We boarded our train, and found our specific seats, only to find a woman already sitting there. I informed her gently that I thought she was in our seats, and got an interesting response: she turned slowly to look at me, paused for a couple of seconds, then gave me a casual shrug, as if to say “what are you going to do about it?”, and turned back to look out the window. She didn’t speak English, and wouldn’t look at me, so I enlisted the help of the ticket collector who checked her ticket, ignored her excuses, and booted her out of the seats. I believe she had bought a ticket for an earlier train, and missed it, so decided she could just board any train, sit anywhere, ignore the problem, and hope that the person who had paid for the seat would give up and sit by the doors, or stand for 3 hours.

The ticket collector showed some mercy and let her take the fold-down seat at the end of the train car, and we settled down for the trip home. When we disembarked to change trains in Roosendaal, I saw the woman again, and she saw me. She scowled at me. I ignored her. Really, I should have shrugged.

 We got back at about 10 at night. I had to photograph the haul before bed:

That is: waffles with orange-blossom creme filling, chutney and cherry jam, some nice beer, 4 types of cured sausage, 2 confit duck legs and some vanilla pods. Delicious!

(As a side note, I must admit…no one does the ‘two crispy waffles stuck together with something sugary’ thing better than the Dutch. The filling of the French waffles was amazing, but the waffles themselves: disappointing. They just couldn’t live up to a good stroopwafel!)

A Weekend in Lille: The first 24 hours

Wow. What a contrast. Even though it is only a few hours away, going to France seems like going to the other side of the world. It is chaotic, English is met with disdain, service is non-existant and schedules are just a guideline. On the upside, the food and drink is incredible, the people are exuberant, the city buzzes with life, and…did I mention the food?

This was my experience with Lille anyway. The reason for our trip was actually because an artist called Feist was playing - plus of course it was a chance to explore a new part of the world! We arrived on a Friday, and had a bit of time to look at the old town (Vieux Lille) before the concert:

We only had time for a quick snack before the show, and so we grabbed some fries at a snackbar. Upon arrival, Allison headed to the merchandise desk, where she bought…pillowcases. Feist pillowcases. An unusual buy, but I must admit that they are very nice. We grabbed a drink and took our seats as the show was starting. The Theatre Sebastopol is a beautiful old theatre, and we had seats on the balcony almost right above the stage!

The show itself was amazing, as expected! Afterwards however we were both exhausted after a long week, so we took a stroll through the old part of town before heading back for some much-needed sleep. 

The next day was Saturday, so everyone was out shopping. The weather was perfect, and so we walked through Vieux Lille to the citadel, a fortified part of the town built in the 17th century, and apparently still used as an army base! The outer part is very large, and part of it is now a free zoo! It was very difficult to capture in photos, just because of the sheer size of it. Check out the view from above!

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We also bought the most delicious little cake I have ever eaten (I’m sure there must be a name for it, but I will call it a cake). It was like a vanilla & almond sponge cake, with raspberry pulp inside, and glazed with white chocolate. Amazing! We ate this on the grass outside Notre-Dame de la Treille, a beautiful and strange combination of old and new architecture.

Following our relaxing morning in the sun, we decided to take the metro out to a museum called La Piscine, in Roubaix, a nearby city. This museum is set in a restored art deco swimming pool - but I will give details and photos in the next post! 

Rotterdam Museum Night

2 weeks ago, on a Saturday night, we trekked to Rotterdam to partake in Rotterdam Museumnacht. This night is not only about museums - it’s also about music, art, food…anything you can think of. It was an incredible experience from start to finish. Included in the very reasonable ticket price (€17) were exhibitions all over town, free transport by bus and boat, some drinks and food, and even musical gigs. Anyway, I’ll let the video do the explaining.