Reflections in Wassenaar...

Another day with low winds, meant lots of opportunities to take shots of reflections.

 

Spotted in Wassenaar...

On a relatively warm day at the end of February, Terri, Kati and I went for a long walk in Wassenaar. 

Along the way, we spotted a big rusty cow...

…a red squirrel (all squirrels are a rare sighting near us)…

…cool fungus...

…paintings on display outside a quaint artist’s studio.

…and a charming and unique house in the park.

 

Last Bits Before Curfew...

Loved this clever interactive mural by American artist Calvin Sprague on the back of Annabel, a popular music venue.

Uniquely, this mural was located on both sides of the building. Artist RUL3RS is from Rotterdam and gets his inspiration from religion, contemporary art and tribal symbols. 

Clearly not a mural, but definitely a creative logo and company name.

Our final mural was by local artist Ozon, who was inspired by a sculpture he made in America for a sanitary ware factory.

We were curious why a horse trailer was parked nearby and were surprised to discover that it housed a British fish ‛n chips shop called Chippy Chips, which instantly became our dinner plan and turned out to be a good choice. We had hoped to go to a rooftop park, but then remembered that we needed to time our return train journey to ensure we were home before curfew, so the park would have to wait.

We walked across the Luchtsingel (which translates to elevated walkway), a 1,280-foot (390-meter) wooden bridge that was completed in 2015 as an urban revitalization project to connect the Center with North Rotterdam. 

Below one of the nine entrances to the bridge is a skatepark as part of Park Pompenburg, built in a former storage area between busy roads and railways.

Lastly, not sure what this design in front of the movie theater actually is, but it looked like a bunch of hypodermic needles; I clearly had the slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the Netherlands on my mind.
 

Artist in the World...

Andre Smits’ Wall 636 is an ode to Rotterdam by listing all of the city’s artists on this 46-foot (14-meter) high wall.

Imagine our surprise that we would meet the artist later that day.

It turned out that Andre had drawn a giant Artist in the World wall in a temporary exhibition space that we happened upon. It took him nearly the entire three weeks that he had the space to complete the mural, which would be painted over the day after our visit. 

He was a fascinating guy who normally travels around the world, photographing artists in their studios. He then incorporates their names and bits of their art into his own. 

Pretty sure Sesame Street wouldn’t approve of this version of Ernie and Bert, but it definitely made us laugh. 

One of Andre’s traditions is to take a photo to post on Instagram of everyone who visited the gallery. 

 

More Urban Art...

While this mural initially caught my eye because of its vibrant colors that happened to match the recycle bins...

…what made it truly unique was that there was a matching big plastic ice cream cone below it.

So cool how Bali-born artist Wild Drawing incorporated the windows into Helixography, a stunning piece of art. 

Across the street was an entirely different work of art: a building decorated as a giant Delft pottery teapot.

This sweet Japanese girl was drawn by an autistic Dutch woman who loves manga characters. 

We eventually ended up switching to the other Street Art Route in order to not have to cross the entire city, so we’ll go back to finish this route later. This piece was designed to be interactive with a swing, but the swing had been taken down (not sure if it was a casualty of COVID or poor maintenance). 

A Canadian artist made what appeared to be a gigantic arcade game. 

 

A Day Trip to Rotterdam...

On February 21, Jimmy and I ventured down to Rotterdam to catch some sunshine and urban art. We were amazed by the number of restaurants and bars that had kiosks set up to sell takeaway food and/or drinks. We stopped at a Belgian beer bar for flammkuchen (Jimmy now has his eyes set on buying a similar wood-burning portable pizza oven) and some of their grapefruit homebrews. 

At first glance he might look like a street performer, but he’s actually a statue in the middle of the sidewalk on a busy street...

…with an unusual mascot: Buttplug Santa.

While this mural was on our official Street Art Route 2 walking tour through the Rotterdam Routes app (we picked up where we left off on our last visit)...

…we were much more fascinated in this one across the street, which was not on the official route. Painted in 1984 as a protest to stop housing cost increases, it shows how these increases crowd out the ability to afford leisure activities or vacations.  

 

Cosmic Fling Dance Party...

The starlings weren’t the only show in our neighborhood as Opee DJed a virtual dance party for hash friends until the wee hours of the morning.

He had quite the set-up in our kitchen using one of Ashlynn’s DJ kits to mix the tunes.

Across the kitchen, he placed a computer on top of our microwave to allow hashers to be able to see us as well as each other on a Zoom video call.

We were disappointed that no one in the Netherlands joined us on that first call, but were thrilled that a few friends in the US jumped on the call and danced with us. 

Pieter, Norah and a very pregnant Melissa were the last ones standing.