Rotterdam

Rotterdam's great harbor is one of the world's finest.

Rotterdam has one of the largest harbors in the world but is mostly known for appearing in a Jackie Chan movie. It played Heda Grabjug, Chan's love interest. It is also known for it strangely quadrilateral buildings.

History

A Nordic tribe of dairy farmers, the Cheese Danish, founded a village on the site of present-day Rotterdam in 311 AD. It was a time of simplicity, a golden era of chivalry, Godliness, and respect for authority. The village was sacked by the Vikings in 312, 313, and 314; the Mongols pillaged it in 315, 316, and 317. After that the Visigoths and Ostragoths took over, though the Vikings occasionally decimated the village for old times' sake. In the year 428 the city's centre got cursed by an auld Grue and was abandoned.

Due to large groups of poor centre-dwelling coffeeshop-owners who moved to the city's outskirts the Black Death took an especially heavy toll in Rotterdam, killing 150% of the population in the first three days. The Dutch had to procreate overtime just to get the population out of the negative numbers. In these years Rotterdam grew from some outskirts to a large town it was then that rotterdam evolved from a small fishing village to a large fishing village. Famous dutch epics like "Op Hoop van Zegen"(OMG the boat has a leak) and "Ik ben met Catootje naar de Botermarkt geweest"(I went to the buttermarket with Catootje) are from this era.

Due to The Great Incests in the early royal families of Europe and America the County Holland was inherited to the Spanish throne. After that it was time for the 80 Years' War, and the population was decimated again which lead to new procreation much to the distress of the Dutch. Yes, it was a golden era. google

The Rennaissance in Rotterdam

The Dutch did not have a Rennaissance. They painted pictures of fat ladies instead. Leonardo da Vinci painted The Moaning Lisa but the Dutch satisfied themselves with Mama Cass Bathing At Hotterfatterheinie. The great artistic and intellectual reawakening that swept Europe changed, upon entering Holland, into pastries and sausages.

The Dutch had no industrial revolution, either. While Newton invented his famous cookies and Jimmy Watt tinkered with steaming donkeys, the Dutch carved wooden shoes.

It was a simple time for simple minds. Rotterdam lazed on its great harbor like a blubbery seal, gobbling pickled herring and cheese and pears-in-honey, while the rest of the Western world embarked on globe-circling voyages and epoch-making discoveries.

To celebrate the coming of the Germans during the 1940's the Rotterdammers -- as they are known -- erected the Euromast. This engineering marvel is a phallus-shaped tower which (unless the Dutch make a similarly huge funnel) has no particular use whatsoever.

At Some Point In Time

Somewhere along the line the inhabitants of Holland started speaking Dutch. This language is renowned for its musical, lilting, romantic sound. Examples:

Haar billen zijn behandeld met besmette pijnlijke plekken! 
(The traditional cry of the Rotterdam street minstrel, 
"Hear betimes a sing-behanded one with besmitten plinth-like playing!" 
This of course makes no sense but it sure is poetic.)

Ik bid dat de varkens uw gezicht zullen afbijten! 
(A greeting: I bid you harken gladly [to the] fullsome afternoon!) 

Note that, when in Rotterdam, one has to put a letter t after every word that doesn't already end with a t, and remove the t in words that do. At some other time Holland also became known as "Nederland" (Lowland, referring to the fact that historical Holland was mostly a landscape of swampy, festering wens.) The inhabitants call themselves the Hollandaise, after the sauce of the same name, or the Dutch after their national hero Dutch Reagan, or Dem Nederlandistas when feeling formal.

Popular Music in Rotterdam

Everyone in Rotterdam, from tiny babies to elderly people, listens to gabba all day long. Gabba is sort of like a cross between the fastest techno music you have ever heard and getting your head kicked in by a gang of neo-Nazi thugs.

Notable buildings

Rotterdam glories in having several remarkable buildings. We will just mention the Main Post Office, that does not function as a post office any more, the Stock Exchange, that does not function as a stock exchange any more and -I think you can see a pattern here- De Hef, a large railway bascule bridge, that does not function as a bridge anymore. One of the first claims to your attention when arriving by train is the Groothandelsgebouw, a fine building whose functions are impossible to describe because they are too many. Also of interest is the Witte Huis (or White House, minus the president and the extensive grounds), the first skyscraper in Europe. In the true Rotterdam spirit, it does not look like a skyscraper at all.

Fun facts

• Often won awards that no one cared about, such as an award for its clean McDonald's and safe brothels.
• You will have to give a me euro to prevent me from telling you that Edsger Dijkstra was born here.
• It's said that Dutch would survive eleven months if they just would be granted access to a stroopwafel store.
• The city is the only place in Holland with skyscrapers and advertises itself as 'Manhattan at the Maas'
• The main export of the city is the Smug Dutch Person, available in convenient cases from your local retailer and at unlikely vacation spots the world over. The song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" was supposed to be "Mad Dogs and Dutchmen", but it did not have enough syllables.