One of the girls from class lives on the very top floor of one of Stadswonen's other student apartment buildings. There is a large balcony that circles the top floor (once you ride up in the elevator you actually have to go back outside to get to her apartment) and she has a really magnificent view. Sitting at her kitchen table, she can look out, through her french doors, and see the entire Rotterdam skyline. I am a little jealous, even if she does have to share with three other people.
If you squint a little, and click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see Erasmusbrug, Williamsbrug (which is the pinkish-red bridge in front of the larger, white Erasmusbrug), the Euromast (which at one point was the tallest structure in the Netherlands), the Unilever building (as in the soap people), which is the one that looks really out of balance and which have I pointed out before, and a whole lot of other buildings. You can probably also almost make out that part of the land across the Maas (the river that you can see) is an island.
Friday was the most beautiful day that we have had since I got to the Netherlands. It was lovely just to sit out on the balcony and look out over the city and just chat. I got more sun than I have had in three weeks and my nose even got a little pink.
Since it was so nice, I decided to walk home, and I am glad that I did, because it was lovely and I got to see bits of Rotterdam that I hadn't known existed before but, on the other hand, I estimate that, what with one thing and another, I walked about 10 miles on Friday, so I was a little tired out.
I have attached a picture of a map, with part of my route marked out in green, to give an idea of part of the way that I went. You can see the Erasmusbrug on the left, the Williamsbrug on the right, and the little island in the middle. The little island is called Noordereiland. My place is more or less south-ish and it isn't included on this map because this map just covers central Rotterdam. The Erasmus Woudestein Campus is off to the right/east a ways and is also not included on this map.
One thing that I saw that I thought was interesting was this pretty, tall church. If you notice the blue banner hanging on the wall, I think that this must be the Dutch version of VBS.
I think that I have mentioned before that the Netherlands are full of canals. This means that it is also full of bridges, many of which are the kind that lift up to allow larger boats through. This bridge is the Admeraltiesbrug and those are some kind of neat boats that were in the canal next to it. The yellow crane thingy is how they raise and lower the bridge and there is one on each side of the road, even though I only got one in the shot.
This is "De Majesteit" which appears to be some kind of cruise boat. What is interesting about it though, is that it appears to be a steam-powered paddle boat, which I think of mostly in connection with the Mississippi and Tom Sawyer.
This is the Williamsbrug Bridge which I walked over on my way home. It is definitely not as fantastical and bizarre as the Erasmusbrug but I kind of like it. One huge plus is that it is shorter and lower so it is a lot less work to cross and it doesn't wobble as much when cars cross it. It is also a fair bit shorter than Erasmusbrug because it just crosses to that little island in the middle of the Maas.
The little island is different from a lot of the rest of Rotterdam. There are little parks and lots and lots of trees, so it is a lot greener than the area where I live. I think it is also quite a bit more expensive than were I live as well. A lot of people had lots and lots of plants in their apartments and balconies. It made a really nice view. This is a bunch of apartments right on the north side of the island. I actually stood on the bridge to take these pictures. It was warm enough that it was nice to walk in the shade of all of the trees on the island. It was very peaceful.
This is a bridge that you can use to get off of the island sometimes, but not today. I have never seen a bridge that was raised quite like this but it is pretty interesting looking. I also don't know what it is used for. There aren't any tracks leading up to it so I don't think it can be trains or trams, and the other bridge seems to handle pedestrian and road traffic well so I wouldn't think it would be needed for that either. But in any case, it wasn't being used when I went by.
This is a view of the bridge I actually crossed over on, taken while standing under the bridge above. I don't know what those green turrets are made of (I assume copper), or why they were put there, but it looked like you could just go inside and sit on benches inside them and watch the river if you wanted. I didn't though, because I was sure you were allowed to, and I didn't want to get yelled at by the often-times scary looking politie (police).
This is a cafe, just the other side of the bridge, back on the mainland. Since I don't think the Mayflower ever docked here, I think that we have to classify this as shameless self-promotionalism.
This place was called the "Zebra Zone." I do not think that the sculptor ever saw a zebra. He may have once seen a giraffe, or a dinosaur, and thought it was a zebra, but I don't think he ever saw a real zebra. I photographed this while I was waiting to cross a bridge that had been raised to let a boat through. I couldn't get a good picture of it raised, though, because I was at a bad angle--it kept just looking like a hill.
This crowd of people approaching from the direction of the bridge gate-house is the back-up of traffic that occurred while the bridge was raised. The bridge building itself (I do not know its original purpose) looks like it has apartments in it now. I think that it could be pretty neat to live in there, and I bet you have a pretty good view, but I bet that that bridge can be pretty noisy and I don't think I would like the traffic going right under my room.
While I was walking along, I found the really nice part of Rotterdam. There are lots of little park areas and little bits of grass and things. You don't really notice that you are surrounded by concrete and paving stones until you see some grass and realize that you haven't seen it for a while. It was nice to walk around areas that I hadn't seen before. It was a beautiful day, and it was a really pleasant and picturesque walk around the city.
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