Rotterdam

My passport is currently with the Russian Consulate in The Hague getting a visa, so I can't leave the country - but that turned out to be perfect because the Rotterdam Marathon was this weekend. It's one of the fastest marathons in the world, with I think 4 of the 5 fastest times ever or something like that, so I was excited to see it. It was also great weather and there were 7 elite runners running, so there was a decent chance of seeing a world record.

The leaders at around 16 miles

Winner - Wilson Chebet

Waving to the crowd after the win

It didn't turn out to be a world record performance (it was a little hot actually), but the winner still ran 2:05, so very fast. It was also a good atmosphere - maybe not as fun as Boston, but still cool.

Afterwards I met up with a friend from work who lives in the city and he and his girlfriend showed me around. We first walked through a pretty cool neighborhood, one of the few that wasn't bombed during WWII, so it's one of the few with the typical, traditional Dutch architecture. The rest of the city is actually very modern compared to Amsterdam or The Hague because it all needed to be rebuilt. We also went to the EuroMast, this big spire that was built for a World Expo or something about 50 years ago. You can take an elevator halfway up, and then the rest of the way you can ride a rotating circular elevator that gives you some very cool views of the city - downtown, the ports and the big bridge.

After that we took a boat taxi to the Hotel New York, which is actually housed in the old Holland America building. Holland America is a cruise line that started doing voyages and shipping to the US back in the 1800s. Now they just do cruises I think and they're headquarters is in Seattle, but the building was cool and the weather was perfect for a cold beer.

Almost the same as that bridge in Boston - or at least half of it

The Holland America building

We then did another water taxi back towards the downtown area and hung out with some of their other friends on a rooftop terrace for a while. All in all it was a cool day with beautiful weather, and it was great to see a marathon and another Dutch city.