A Day in Rotterdam...

The following day we dashed down to Rotterdam for our last museum visit for at least 3.5 months. We arrived early for our allotted time so we could take a long walk starting at Rotterdam Blaak Station...

…where we spotted these new giant sculptures. Everyone but Us is Dead are 25-foot (7.5-meter) aluminum feet that people clearly enjoy climbing on. 

You might just be able to make out the Christmas tree decoration in the giant window of the Markt Hall.

Inside, you couldn’t miss the giant Christmas tree. 

It wasn’t surprising to see this Cancel 2020 sticker...

…but this neon sign had me perplexed.

Would have loved to have grabbed a bite at Vessel II, the British gastropub on this ship, but it wasn’t open for takeaway.

Don’t remember seeing these cute turtles before near the Maritime Museum. 
 

Quiet Amsterdam...

On December 12, we journeyed back up to Amsterdam for what would be our last trip there for at least 3.5 months as the new lockdown was starting two days later and is still ongoing through at least the end of March. It was very sweet of Victor and Nadine to invite us over for dinner. It was a dry night, so we took a long walk from the train station to their house, where we were surprised to see some over the top Christmas decorations. 

Things were very quiet when we caught a late train from Amsterdam Zuid station...

…into an abandoned Schiphol.

How strange to realize that not only did I pass through Schiphol’s train station fewer times than usual, I never used the airport in 2020. After flying around the world for the first time in 2019, I never flew in 2020, surely the first year that I hadn’t flown since college. 

 

More Virgin Territory...

The entire trail was all new territory to me with quite a variety of interesting buildings including a restaurant supply company painted with cute murals...

…a unique riverfront house...

…a strangely skinny apartment building...

…and funky sculptures.

Our timing was perfect to catch a lovely sunset over the harbor...

...as reflected in a window...

…and across from where we ended the trail. It was nice to finally meet up with the rest of the small pack. We stayed in groups of four to enjoy a beer and some kruidnoten in honor of Sinterklaas. Little did we know that hash on December 6 would be our last hybrid hash for at least four months as a stricter lockdown in mid-December meant that only two people could exercise together.
 

When the Hare Went Haywire...

After a late night, we all slept in later than we should have considering Opee was due to hare a hybrid hash for Amsterdam H3 on the far side of Amsterdam starting near Amstel Station. He managed to run to catch the train...

…while FCTW and I aimed for the next one...

…which looked like this. This meant that we arrived at the hash start late, but then we didn’t have to worry about social distancing. 

Excremental Earnings was also running late, so the three of us ran together. Imagine our surprise when the trail led us up a hill to the freeway.

While we expected a false trail behind this sign...

…the trail actually carried across this freeway overpass. 

Later I caught a photo of that overpass, although we were on the far side.

Eventually we came to a check with marks leading even further down the freeway. Much as I suspected, the wayward hare actually wanted the trail to continue along to the next offramp, but he finally realized that the next ramp could be miles away so marked it as a false trail and turned around. We were really lucky that a cop didn’t witness us trespassing.

The only other option from the check was to go down this steep sandy hill. Both FCTW and EE managed to stay upright and captured my graceful trip down on my butt.

 

Advent Calendars and Whisky Tasting...

Since we knew that we’d be stuck at home for the month of December, it didn’t take much for Reinhardt and Inga to talk us into ordering two beer advent calendars so that we could virtually drink some interesting beers together along with Simon, a hash friend in Wiesbaden. Knowing that we’d be drinking a large variety of beers inspired me to finally download Untappd, an app to track beers, which Reinhardt and Inga have been using for years. Beery Christmas included 24 craft beers from around the world. Each day we opened one circle in the box and went online for info about the beer and recommended food pairings. Many of the pairings didn’t work for us as they were meat or foods we didn’t have in the house (and we didn’t want to make extra trips to the supermarket due to COVID), but it was fun when it did work. Most surprising was that I’ve discovered that I really like dessert beers.  

The other advent calendar that they convinced us to buy was the Craft Beer Run Christmas Challenge which alternated 12 Dutch craft beers with 12 run challenges. While we were very good about sharing one of those beers every other day, we weren’t as diligent about doing the runs. 

Jim brought us our third advent calendar... 

…featuring 24 homemade small bags filled with candy plus an adorable mask ornament designed and made by Nina. 

Jim wanted to take us out to dinner to thank us for putting up with him for another week, but restaurants were still closed so we did Thai takeout instead. Afterwards we did an impromptu whisky tasting.

Needless to say, we all agreed that the cheap Dutch Scotchman whisky was not the winner. 

 

Excuses to Stop on Trail...

The second half of trail was slower going for me than usual as I kept stopping to take photos of the remarkable reflections in Westelijke Eilanden (Western Islands), another lovely area of Amsterdam full of converted warehouses. With no wind or boats, this was truly a rare occasion.

This little fellow gave me a laugh. 

Opee’s trail led us back to the start where Slippery provided us with a beer that we could enjoy in separate small groups. 

Since we clearly couldn’t circle up in public, we walked back to Bob’s to grab our stuff, took the train to Schiphol to pick up Jim who was staying with us again and headed home before joining a small virtual circle later on Zoom. 

While technically the full moon wasn’t until the following night, Mother Nature still put on a nice show for us.