Well, today was our last day in Rotterdam. I’m getting a slight cold (of course). The work event went well today. I came back and relaxed with Jenny for a bit. She got a Subway sub for herself for lunch, and another one for me or for a snack later. I had some of that when I got back to the hotel, then I rested for a while as we listened to the financial markets continue to crash. Yay!
Later this evening, we went out to get a good dinner on our last night here. We found a neat little place near the hotel in a line of other bars and restaurants. I picked this one because it didn’t have a menu in English. 
Seriously, it looked good and not too crowded, and the prices looked good. I can pick up a few words of Dutch here and there now, so I could tell that they had some stuff that we’d eat. I ended up getting their chicken sate with peanut sauce with a side of traditional potatoes. Yum. Jenny got tortellini that was in what tasted like a basil cream sauce. We enjoyed some “coke light” with our meals, then headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our trip to the airport and then HOME tomorrow!
So you might find this talk of Subway sandwiches and the like odd, given that we are in a foreign country and all. As I was talking to a Dutchman at one of our events the other day, I asked what might be considered “traditional” Dutch food, as we had some difficulty finding things in Amsterdam that seemed unique. He explained that cheese and bread was a traditional breakfast, but that everything else was pretty diverse. The wide mix of cultures and nationalities here has led to a wide variety of dishes and styles becoming popular in Holland. Potatoes are traditional (and are available in many interesting and good preparations), and some original Dutch “fast food” are things like meat croquettes. Most places have some varieties of potatoes available, and they are always good. Jenny and I found a few places with croquettes in Amsterdam, but we didn’t see any here. Of course, we didn’t have time to look that hard.
Jenny got out to do some other exploring today. She walked to one of the harbors near the Maritime Museum on the Maas Road and took some pictures in that area. The camera battery went flat on her, though–I didn’t realize that it was that low yet. I had the chargers, but it didn’t make sense to charge it tonight just for the trip home, so the camera is packed and ready to come home. I’ll grab the pictures off of it when we get home.
I’m a little sad that I didn’t get more of a chance to explore Rotterdam. We knew that was going to be the case coming in, though–we elected to spend our available time exploring London this time. There are really so many places to see in the world–I’m sure we’ll get back here sometime.
We’re planning to catch an 8:00 train tomorrow morning to Schiphol Airport from Rotterdam Central Station. We have a back-up train at 8:28 in case we miss the 8:00. Our flight leaves at 12:10 (UTC+2), and arrives in Cincinnati at 15:15 (UTC-4). We then have a three-hour layover in beautiful Cincinnati, and eventually arrive back in Pittsburgh at almost 21:00. We’ll probably get some dinner from there and then crash when we get home. We both intend to work on Friday. Going that way is easy, time-wise–we just need to force ourselves to be awake longer than usual, then sleep when we finally get home. By the next morning, we’ll be pretty much back on track again.
Next time we write will probably be back in the ‘states.
jonathan
