Journey In God's Amazing Grace

Monday, July 27, 2026

Saturday - day 2 - Rotterdam - part 2

First part of Rotterdam can be found here: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/07/saturday-rotterdam-part-1.html

Continuing on our day in Rotterdam... we had heard about "cube houses" (Kijk-Kubus)...

Okay, those look odd!

Model house up this way...

We were able to go inside one of the houses (I think it may have been called the museum house)...

Inside the cube house, going up to the main floor (you had to take a set of straight stairs up to the door and foyer area (just a small area on the first floor), then a set of curving stairs up to the main floor).

Kitchen on the main floor - there was also a sitting room (all combined into one kinda round space around the stairwell). The windows looked down to the street below.

On the second floor was a small bathroom (it had plexiglass across the door so we couldn't see in it well), a bedroom, and an office/study. All the furniture was fitted into the space (there really wasn't room for you to bring your own furniture). The windows looked down to the street on this floor also.

The top floor was open, and very warm. The windows looked up.

Some information that was posed in the Cube House:

The cube house was interesting, and we're used to living in a small space, but... we would *not* be interested!

We left to head back toward the ship. We had heard that there was a parade starting at noon, and we had seen trucks with stages on the trailers setting up when we walked by earlier. The participants were getting ready to be in the parade along the route we walked...

Information I found on the web (and did a screen capture from my phone)

Like a Carnival parade....

...exotic costumes...

Some of the more traditional costumes for The Netherlands -- and a truck just beyond that provided a stage for some participants.

More exotic costumes

We eventually got to a spot along the parade route where we could see the participants go by -- the lady in yellow was on a trailer...

... a younger lady on another trailer -- I think these trailers were people powered rather than by trucks.

Our ship at dock

Pat and Joe with me and the Nieuw Statendam behind us

Closer view of our ship

Swan bridge from back on the ship

Many passengers joined our voyage in Rotterdam, so the sail-away party happened this afternoon -- a conga line-type dance proceeded around the outside pool.

After dinner, we did a few laps around the promenade deck. A little off the coast, we saw an oil drilling rig.

Windmills out in the North Sea

Evening performance in the World Stage

Singers (and dancers)

We are happy that Sunday will be a sea day -- no need (or ability) to get off the ship!

Saturday - day 2 - Rotterdam - part 1

Our ship left Dover on Friday evening for a relatively short journey across to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

On Saturday, we started with breakfast in the buffet where we saw Joe and Pat and agreed to meet up just off the gangway of the ship.

I took a picture of the sign with the re-boarding time (it was swapping from English to Dutch and I happened to snap when it was displaying the Dutch sign) -- always good to have the re-boarding time documented in case we forget while we're off the ship.

Selfie photo op in the cruise terminal

Erasmusbrug (Erasmus bridge) locally known as the "Swan" bridge

Swan bridge selfie with Pat and Joe

Rotterdam

We decided to go to the Markthal (market hall) -- this is the outside. There is a food court on the inside, and apartments on the outside. It wasn't open when we arrived, so we walked around a little while.