Day: May 11, 2026

Back before there were cruise ships to luxuriate on while crossing the Atlantic, there were Ocean Liners. Like we saw in “The Titanic” or “The Poseidon Adventure.” Primitive compared to the wedding cake cities that tour the globe nowadays offering Broadway musicals and topical lectures, but still impressive if you think of the parties that…

Today (Monday), a slow day, a chilly day with a bit of rain.

Last night (Sunday)…A fish place with a different concept” is how they bill themselves.  The maître d’ handed us an oval tin of sardines with our table number written in sharpie on the top. “Would you like to start with a glass of cava?” she asked. “Well sure” I said as Grubb shook his head…

On the edge of Eendrachtsplein in Rotterdam is a sculpture made by Paul McCarthy in 2001. He called it Santa Claus. Since then it has been popularly nicknamed “Kabouter Buttplug” or the “Buttplug Gnome.” McCarthy said the object is officially a stylized Christmas tree and meant to be a comment on consumer culture. Maybe if…

Every time we visit Rotterdam we try to check out the latest cultural collections. The port city has a lot huge old style warehouses made vacant by the stacks of shipping containers on the docks. Empty warehouses, like abandoned banks, make great music venues and museums. Yesterday, after we checked into our hotel, we took…

Yesterday (Sunday), we had a last coffee and chat with Esther in Delft at a place called Anne&Max. Sadly, we said our goodbyes and hopped a train for Rotterdam. 12 minutes later, we stepped off the train in Rotterdam Centraal, headed down to the metro, took line D and just a few stops later popped…

Saturday morning we went to Tess and Josh’s for coffee. Tess is Esther and Hendrik’s daughter. And of course mother to the adorable Juneau and Cleo. And sweet kitty Marmelade with kitten Toast on the way. They live maybe 15 minutes walk from where we were staying, on a canal in a home they recently…