What is actually happening in Rotterdam

I have been to a lot of weird places. 5 that spring to mind in no particular order:
Manizales in Colombia
This tiny village near Leek with 99 Flake ice creams still costing 99p
Franz Josef in New Zealand where 9/10ths of the population have an STI
Moscow
Rotterdam

Perspective

Rotterdam is exactly the opposite of Leiden, because in Leiden the map suggests a city of size and wide roads, where in fact it is a small village that takes 20 minutes to circumvent. Rotterdam’s map suggests a walkable city with narrow winding lanes and a simple layout, whereas in reality it is massive (for Holland) and the roads are all about 6 lanes wide. They have a Metro that doesn’t cover about half of the city and trams and buses swinging around the whole place, making for a very large, busy environment. It takes absolutely ages to get anywhere, not made any more pleasant by the weather.

Weather

It rained literally all. The. Time. Why wouldn’t it stop?! At one point I am pretty sure there were no clouds and it was still raining. I was just constantly wet, and whilst in some scenarios for some genders that would be pretty positive, in this case it was just mildly irritating.

Hipsters

I went into a bar and started chatting to the barman. He said ‘great choice of bar, this is a hipster one, not like those awful mainstream ones’. Holland is clearly still four years behind when it comes to this because in Holland, being hipster is still hipster.

Dogs

They tax you for having a dog in Holland, which I find amusing and unnecessary. What I find less amusing and even more unnecessary is that Dutch people therefore let their dogs shit everywhere and then just leave it, because if they pay taxes for it, they shouldn’t have to clear it up themselves. Now whilst I just about understand the theoretical logic behind that thinking, the reality is that there is dog shit LITERALLY EVERYWHERE IN ROTTERDAM. You can’t even look at all the bizaare buildings because you have to stare at the ground to ensure you avoid a smelly mess.

Architecture

In a few weeks time/never, I will write an article that features pictures and analysis on the buildings of Rotterdam, because this place is quite simply a modern architects wet dream. No, in fact I don’t think they’d even have the imagination to get themselves off as much as these buildings would. The city was totally destroyed in WWII so they had a blank canvas to work with, and I can only assume in the initial city planning meeting the minutes read like this:

Meeting open. I would like to open by saying NOOOOOO WAY NO NO NO fucking WAY ARE WE DESIGNING ANYTHING THAT LOOKS EVEN REMOTELY NORMAL, NO FUCKING WAY, EVERY BUILDING HAS TO LOOK TOTALLY INSANE! HAHAHAHA THIS IS GOING TO BE FUCKING MENTAL! THE POMPIDOU CENTRE CAN GO FUCK ITSELF! Meeting adjourned for lunch.

You’ll see what I mean.