The Netherlands #2. Exchange holiday in Rotterdam

If anyone watched the movie "The Holiday", they would immediately remember how one woman went to another's house in the USA, and the other went to her house in Great Britain. I had almost such a vacation, only one moment that no one went to Kyiv...

The door of the house in Rotterdam where I lived

I booked a nice apartment in Rotterdam on Airbnb, it was much cheaper than in Amsterdam and looked very presentable. Only, in this particular case, the word presentable is not very suitable, since the apartment was chic, spacious, and authentic. Why authentic? Because this is not a standard and typical apartment from the Airbnb service. This is the owner's apartment and they live there, and while they go on vacation, they rent it out for a few days or weeks on Airbnb. Of course, this was not written on the website, and of course, no one expected this. The owners of the apartment are a young progressive couple, very friendly and polite. It turned out that they were going to Belgium at that time to visit their parents and we were lucky enough to rent their apartment. In Europe, this is a common practice. Deciphering for people from Ukraine: the apartment in which the owners live is rented out to strangers, whom they do not know and have never met, with everything in the apartment, including, of course, expensive appliances, expensive art objects, and their clothes…. I couldn't believe it... And I was embarrassed that this is a normal practice in Europe. In Ukraine it is not trustworthy and safe to rent out your apartment to anyone while you are on your vacation, you cannot even plant flowers near the house, because they will be dug up by somebody (I have already given the example of flowers several times).

So... It's a wonderful feeling, it's like you're in someone else's Airbnb apartment, but this apartment is alive, it's full of flowers, books, photo albums and photo books, paintings and figurines…. The apartment seems to be talking to you, telling you its stories... And you no longer feel like you are on vacation in a rented apartment, you feel like you are at home as if you have come to visit your relatives. In the evenings you take care of the flowers in the pots, watering them, and in the morning you check the bouquets of fresh flowers, trimming them and changing the water…. And the ware... This Dutch ware…. Even the same food that I usually eat in Germany and before that I ate in Ukraine seemed tastier to me because there is a feeling of coziness and comfort.... The feeling that everything is done with love and for yourself, and not for someone else. For the first time in a long time since the war, I felt that I was at home, I had my flowers and beautiful ware again....

The apartment is located in the city center in a residential area in an old building and occupies the entire building vertically. The stairs, as always, are very, very vertical. The apartment has a bedroom, a bathroom, a toilet, two office rooms, and a huge studio room with a kitchen and a balcony. Mixed styles that are incompatible at first glance: expensive rare wooden cabinets and chests of drawers and a very simple metal bookcase, like in a warehouse, art deco, and modern, hi-tech, and minimalism, maybe even colonial. I am not a great specialist in interior styles. But it was all amazing. With a complete sense of security and the aroma of home.... This is so important for a person who one day fled their own country, scared and confused, taking only a pillow, a blanket and a small backpack (rucksack)....

Rotterdam was almost completely bombed after the Second World War and this, of course, left its dark mark. The city does not have its spirit. Sometimes it feels as if the city was formed from everything that it had and often it all looks very strange: single houses in the old Dutch style that remained after the war, several cathedrals that survived, new houses in a whimsically strange style that I just could not used to, skyscrapers in the center of the city, which seemed to be transferred from another reality, completely new houses on mini-islands with their infrastructure and their isolated life.

But the city is a real hero, which survived not only a huge number of bombs during the Second World War, which wiped out almost the entire city and people but also a strong fire in 1563, as well as an attack by the Roman Empire in 1489.

Sometimes I couldn't understand whether these were elite houses and apartments and they were very expensive, or whether these were economy houses and were built for people who could not afford anything else. The architecture of some of them reminded me of the houses in "Zatoka" resort in the Odesa region... That's why I did not realize this architectural maneuver - whether it was a masterpiece or a low-budget construction.

The city center is very dirty. At first, I thought that people just did not clean up the trash after themselves, but after ten minutes of being on the main square, I realized... It's not people... It's impudent seagulls, which scatter garbage from garbage cans all over the street, looking for food...

The huge glass house from the photo below The Markthal (English: Market Hall) is a so-called food court, a temptation for those who like to eat. There is a lot of all kinds of food from different countries, you buy and eat either right at the market, or on the street, or you take it home. Everything looks delicious and I want to taste everything. Since I came to the Netherlands with gastritis :-) , I could not eat anything like that. But I was still tempted by the ice cream, explaining for a long time to my stomach why I was doing it and why it was so important to me... The truth was that I just wanted to try a black vegan ice cream made from some root of some grass, of course, I don't remember the name. It was very tasty.... But I couldn't finish it because while I was eating outside, crazy seagulls were tearing my delicacy out of my hands and mouth and shouting something at me loudly... maybe they were swearing that I didn't share much with them...

So, I recommend going to this market to feel the flavor and taste all kinds of goodies and, of course, to buy cheese, by the way, there is lactose-free cheese.

Skyscrapers are rising a little further from the market, which is more reminiscent of Dubai or New York and, thus, give the city the status of a business and financial center, and also make Rotterdam the modern "architectural capital of the Netherlands".

Cubic houses are probably one of the main tourist attractions of Rotterdam. They were built in 1984 by architect Piet Blom. The houses contain three floors:

• ground floor entrance

• first floor with living room and open kitchen

• second floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom

• top floor which is sometimes used as a small garden

Original text about cubic houses is here Cube house - Wikipedia .

That was the city of Rotterdam - the largest European port and the "architectural capital of the Netherlands", which I advise you to visit if you are in the Netherlands.

June 25, 2023.