After we said goodbye to the Germanic Jensons, we took a series of trains to Rotterdam for the main purpose of our trip: the Joy of Coding conference, where I was to give a talk about chat robots. Our hotel was ridiculously modern, including a partially-transparent wall between the bedroom/living area and the bathroom.

The conference was lovely, and I had a great time. While I was busy mingling and speaking, Becky explored the neighborhood around our hotel, including a return trip to an amazing foodie market just across the river, and discovered a photography museum.

The view from the bathroom

Rotterdam was bombed flat in WWII, so everything there is fairly new. We wanted to get a feel for old-timey Holland, so we took a train to Delft and walked around. We hit up the TI for a self-guided walking tour, which took us all day. It also happened to be market day, so the town square was full of tents with all manner of tasty treats and gewgaws for sale. There’s more history here than we could process at once. It was intensely charming.

We enjoyed the Netherlands very much, and we hope to be back someday.