Rotterdam or Anywhere

Now I can just about see how you could confuse Rotterdam with Liverpool (both big port cities with shiny new waterfronts) but Rome? Really? I've been to very few cities that are less like Rome than Rotterdam. The only similarity is that capital R.

Rotterdam gets a big fat thumbs up. The buildings are well architecture (I was able to namedrop Renzo Piano and sound like I knew what I was talking about) and there seemed to be a background hum of exciting stuff happening across the city. You know? Like art and culture and stuff?

Just been on a bike ride through that there rolling Utrecht countryside. Cycled through the red light district - most bizarre - just like the Amsterdam one, with its knocky windows, but on a series of houseboats right next to a motorway.

One thing I've learned this weekend is that my phone doesn't work abroad. I don't know what's more surprising, that in 2012 there are phone networks which don't have international roaming as standard, or that it's taken me four countries to notice.