Christmas in Rotterdam

I decided I did not want to host Christmas this year and I wanted to spend our time off doing something or traveling. I just haven't been in the mood to host - last year was too much. I also don't want to have to rely on other people or try to work with other people's schedules. Additionally, two of my young, single guys who needed a place to go for the holidays are now back in the states, which added to my lack of desire to host. I wanted to go somewhere or do something instead of hosting, but wasn't sure what. When I was planning our trip I wasn't sure what time Josh was going to get off of work, so I wanted to pick a destination which was in close driving distance. At first I was considering Paris or Disneyland Paris, but both of those places are popular, and therefore expensive for Christmas (surprise). Josh has wanted to go to Rotterdam, The Netherlands since we got here. When he was stationed in Florida he knew someone from Rotterdam who constantly raved about how awesome her hometown was.I decided to look into Rotterdam for Christmas as it is only a three hour drive away. At first I just wanted to see what there was to do in Rotterdam, and if anything would be open on Christmas. When I was searching it appeared that Rotterdam had plenty of things going on for Christmas. One thing, which immediately caught my attention, was the Rotterdam Christmas Circus. It is a circus which has been performed at Christmas every year for forty years. Sign me up! It didn't take me long to decide I was sold on the idea of Rotterdam for Christmas. Then I found an amazing hotel deal, which sealed the deal for us. I was quite pleased with myself actually - it was a hotel deal for one of the nice, fancy high rise hotels in the city for about 1/4 of the normal price. When Josh and I travel we try to do things as cheap as possible. We don't always choose the cheapest possible option, but we have definitely stayed in some crappy hotels for the sake of the price. We usually walk or use public transportation to avoid costs. So to travel on Christmas and stay somewhere which is suppose to be not only nice but fancy is a little out of the ordinary for us. We planned to arrive in Rotterdam on Christmas Eve day and then leave on the 26th. When we arrived I was not disappointed with our hotel. It was everything I had hoped it would be. When we checked in, we were offered an upgraded room which would include breakfast and access to the "executive lounge" which would have free wi-fi and free drinks. Um, yes. Sign us up please. The upgrade was at a "cost" - and the cost made the great deal I found not as great (still a good deal, but not as good). We didn't care. Merry Christmas to us.

 

When I was planning our trip I figured we would arrive on Christmas Eve afternoon, wander around the city, and then have dinner. But... it was pouring down rain. As in - can hardly see outside because of the rain- raining. We spent most of the afternoon enjoying our "Executive Lounge" privileges (read: drinking free wine at 3 in the afternoon). We did venture outside for a bit - and we were surprised to see how many people were out and about shopping! It was a busy shopping afternoon! It might have been fun to shop, but I was drenched, soaked to the bone... so we got ourselves dried off, enjoyed free drinks, and waited for dinner.

I had wanted to find something fun, unique, or memorable to do for Christmas Eve dinner. I looked on the Rotterdam city website, and they suggested three different restaurants which offered special Christmas dinners. One of the restaurants suggested was the SS Rotterdam, which is a retired cruise ship turned restaurant/hotel. It was mentioned on many different Rotterdam websites, so I figured it must be good. I had made reservations for us for Christmas Eve dinner. When I looked online it appeared the restaurant wasn't too far of a walk away from our hotel. I must have read the map wrong, because the map we got from the hotel showed it to be much farther away than I originally thought. With the nasty weather, walking was out of the question, and the restaurant wasn't easily reached by the metro. So, we took a taxi - something we never do. The SS Rotterdam was interesting to walk around - a cruise ship from many years ago. We noticed the ceilings were much lower, and in many areas there were exposed pipes. Dinner, however, was horrible. Disgusting. This review is exceptionally harsh coming from Josh, because he pretty much will eat anything. I ordered roast, and it was a bad cut of meat with huge veins of fat running through it. Josh had ribs which he said tasted freezer burnt. I had thought picking a restaurant which had been listed or sponsored on city websites would have been worthwhile. It wasn't. We were both starving when we went for dinner, and I knew right away dinner was not going to be enough. We quickly decided to got back to the hotel and order some room service. Basically we spent 40 Euros on two cab rides to eat a shitty dinner only to order room service. But the room service was delicious! Ha ha.

The next morning we got up and opened presents. There were some friends and family who were kind enough to send us some gifts (my parents brought our gifts with them and my mom wrapped them). I packed them with us, so Christmas morning I sorted out our presents into two piles and we opened them. We were quite spoiled by everyone and by each other.

We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel - it was a buffet - and I had smoked salmon with a croissant. Not a typical breakfast for me. The sun was shining, and we decided to take advantage of the day and go out and explore. We weren't expecting anything to be open, but to our surprise we did find a museum which was open. I had seen online there was a special exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci going on, but I didn't think we'd have a chance to see it. But, we walked past the museum, and it was open, so in we went. It was interesting - it talked a lot about his inventions and ideas. They had re-created many of his inventions based upon his drawings. They also had many exhibits about his paintings where they showed how the paintings would have looked when they were first completed. We really enjoyed ourselves.

After cruising through the museum, we decided to walk towards the arena where the Christmas circus was. Again, we were surprised by the number of people who were out and about. It was still a quiet day, but there were more people out than we'd thought there would be. Rotterdam is known for their modern architecture. It is an interesting city - it is a busy port city, and there are still areas of "traditional" Dutch architecture, but there is also a large amount of modern buildings right next to old fashion buildings.

One of my favorite sights in Rotterdam is the Erasmus Bridge - well known for the modern design. I didn't get any pictures of it at night, and I wish I had because it was beautiful. It offered some great views of the city, and we enjoyed walking over it.

We walked and walked and walked to get to the circus - ate least five miles. It was a beautiful day, and we saw a lot - which was what I originally had hoped to do on Christmas Eve. Better late than never.

I don't have any pictures to show you of the circus as we weren't allowed to take any inside of the building. But the circus was awesome. The venue was smaller than I thought it would be, but I liked it was a more intimate setting. This circus was more of a traditional, old fashioned circus. There wasn't any trapeze or high rope acts like the circuses I have seen in the states. We did see acrobatic acts - Josh described them as more like traditional Russian tumbling acts. There was also a Cirque du Soleil type dance/acrobatic act, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My favorite parts were the animal acts - we saw seals, elephants, and dancing horses. I especially love the seals. While we were at the circus we had a Christmas lunch of a soft serve ice cream mixed with candy, which was the closest thing to a Blizzard we've had while in Europe. Josh and I had a lot of fun - even though we were adults at a circus full of children. The circus was a fun touch to the day.

After the circus we went back to our hotel to relax. We enjoyed some free drinks, and then Skyped with my family. For dinner we decided to stay at the hotel instead of venturing out since our dinner the night before had gone so horribly. As it was, our dinner at the hotel was good. We relaxed for the rest of the evening. In the morning it was back to pouring down rain, which made it easy to be ready to go home. We got home in the early afternoon and got unpacked and ready to go back to work (sadly).

It was kind of weird to travel on Christmas, as I've never actually not been at home or with family for the holidays. But we enjoyed ourselves and had a lot of fun. I was worried about having nothing to do or having nothing open, but we didn't have any troubles. In fact, I am game to travel for Christmas next year. I would even be happy to go back to Rotterdam for the Christmas Circus.