Art Depot Tour...

The following day, Terri and I headed to Rotterdam for a private tour of the Art Depot with the AWC.

We donned the visitor uniforms and cool phone pouches that were designed by Saskia Markx, who Jimmy and I had met at De Wasserij. It was very cool that we got to ride up in the huge freight elevator, normally used to transport artworks. 

Terri and I were the only ones still wearing masks, which had just become optional in museums. 

The one-hour tour included visiting a ten-minute visit to one storage compartment. Ironically, we ended up visiting the same one that we had gone into the previous month with Veronica and Brett. At first I was a bit disappointed, but we saw some different pieces of art and were allowed to take photos.

Our tour guide pointed out this piece by Andy Warhol...

…and this one with barbed wire from a concentration camp.

In contrast, there were several large textile collages...

…and what might have been a restaurant banner advertising oatmeal. 

We finished our tour on the rooftop, where I captured this selfie. 
 

Twofer Tutu Tuesday...

When we learned that 22/2/22 (February 22) was International Tutu Tuesday, we couldn’t resist adding an extra FILTH trail so we could hash in tutus. Opee live laid a pub crawl starting at his office in The Hague. 

It was a proper run for our small merry group of runners...

…and it was a beautiful night.

We ended back at Opee’s office for circle and dancing. It turned out there was a DJ there gettting ready to broadcast a live show, so Opee thought I should use the microphone for the circle.

We were pleased to have several Hague H3 hashers join us.

Pee Nut had the fanciest tutu, complete with lights. 

After the circle, we drank some more...

…and danced (clearly ignoring social distancing).

Opee asked the DJ to set up a special Twofer Tutu Tuesday countdown to 22:02:22 (or 10:22:22 p.m.)
 

Meanwhile in Scotland...

In mid-January, Ashlynn finally got to go to in-person lectures at the University of Glasgow for the first time...

...as well as in-person labs. No doubt that her university experience was nothing like Veronica’s. 

She also participated in a protest in January. 

Ashlynn started working at BAaD (Barras Art and Design, a restaurant and event hall) in August 2021 as a bartender. This photo of her was featured on the company’s Instagram feed and website. 

Extra exciting for Ashlynn was that she started DJing occasionally at BAaD in February.

Although she’s hard to see here, this was taken by her roommate when Ashlynn performed on the main stage with images of marine animals behind her.

In other DJ news, Ashlynn was thrilled to learn that she and Rosie would be taking over as co-managers of Subcity, a community freeform radio station at the University of Glasgow. 
 

A New Hasher?

While I had no expectations that Terri would become a hasher, I fully appreciated that after hearing about hashing for years, she wanted to experience it for herself. It was a mild mid-February day when she drove me and Mama’s Bitch to Tiel, southeast of Utrecht, to hash with Wageningen H3. This is the town’s mascot Flipje, a raspberry figure from the 1930s for a jam company. 

It was a nice rural trail through several parks, which Mama’s Bitch loved. Us runners managed to get lost shortly after this photo was taken and needed inside information to find the beer break.

There were dramatic skies as we ran along the Waal River. The circle was back at the train station. We didn’t stay till the end since it was a long drive back, but at least Terri got a glimpse of the zaniness. 
 

BlueCity...

Years ago we heard rumors of an urbex site in Rotterdam: an abandoned waterpark. We heard that it was impossible to enter, so we never even tried to find it. 

Years later we learned that BlueCity, an innovation hub for start-ups in the circular economy, had taken over the basement of the former tropical paradise. 

I was excited when I saw on a Rotterdam tourism Instagram account that BlueCity was having an open house. 

Here was our chance to visit an urbex site while learning about innovative new companies.

Unfortunately, what we assumed would be set up like a trade show with the chance to talk with the budding entrepreneurs about their businesses, was more like a museum display with a sign about each company but no information about actually buying any of the new products or tasting the beer brewed in the basement.  

Veronica pretended to swim in the former lazy river. 

While we were disappointed by the displays, we were far from disappointed about the opportunity to visit this cool site which originally opened in 1989 and closed in 2010. 

 

Back to Rotterdam...

The following day we headed back down to Rotterdam. This time we walked along the Maas River, past the Willemsbrug...

…towards the old Tropicana Waterpark.

We also spotted De Hef. I had posted earlier that Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, had tried to throw enough money to the city to convince the Mayor to dismantle this bridge to allow his new superyacht to pass through. After much debate and many threats from the public to throw eggs at the yacht, a new plan was hatched that didn’t involve needing to dismantle a historic monument.

Speaking of yachts, we spotted several on our walk back from the Tropicana, but none would qualify as superyachts.

Further along, there were no yachts, but rather historic ships...

…which are clearly used as homes considering the laundry linees. 

We also passed the cube-shaped homes, which always make for good photo ops...

…the Markt Hall seen from a different angle...

…and some cool architectural lines...

….and curves within the Rotterdam Blaak Station.