We are midway through our week of activities I’m sad to say, but I cannot express how much fun we’ve had! First off the bat this morning is the escape rooms. We’ve given a few a try but we don’t have the best success rate if I’m honest.
We didn’t do much research before we set-off, therefore it was a huge surprise to see we would be tackling our way out of the room on the SS Rotterdam ship!
Arriving in the captain’s lounge, we met our team who will be working with us to crack the codes and find the keys.
You are then taken down to the rooms below, which also allows you to quickly see the old swimming pool, still in the same style of how they had it in the 1950’s. Unfortunately, the pool is permanently out of use, but I didn’t have trunks on me anyway so it would have been a tease if open.
Once we got in the room, we begun lifting items, staring at safes and generally shaking anything within reach. 30 minutes later and we weren’t much further at all!
I think it’s safe to say we didn’t quite get out of the room. In fact, I need to embarrassingly admit that we didn’t even get into the second room.
We actually found out the other groups that tried later in the day all got out, so we weren’t feeling particularly proud.
We had a bit of a gap between the escape rooms and the beers & snacks, therefore it gave us a great opportunity to try out a restaurant. We know we should be tasting all the local delicacies, but we saw a store offering tasty Tex Mex food, so we were enticed!
My word, we were not expecting to fall in love today! From the Jalapeno cheese bites, to the unbelievable burger and the smoothies alongside. We were even tempted to order a chocolate volcano or a red velvet cake. It’s like they found a list of our favourite foods and placed them all in front of us.
The Texican was located on West Kruiskade, a 1 minute walk from the Beers and Snacks at Hostel Ani and Haakien.
While all the other activities had been fast, active and quite intense, this was a nice relaxing twist, where we sat out in the garden, embracing the sun rays and sipping on a beer, while chatting to some great people.
They setup the hostel just 5 years ago as Rotterdam seemed to lack a low-cost place to crash, outside of the world of hotels. Hostels always have a social aspect which I love, something this place certainly had.
Unfortunately there was a former army psycho staying there at the time, who I nauseatingly have to confess was English (really making us look crazy).
After chugging a few beers and getting a video of the hosts, as we as catching up with some old friends from previous Traverse events, it was straight on to the next event. The final activity for the day was the drinks at the Secret Garden of Brasserie Schielandshuis and tour Rotterdam discovery.
This was connected to the Rotterdam tourist board building and was a great garden to relax and enjoy some fine wine. We mingled within the group until we were taken into the Discovery centre, where they talked through the history of this beautiful city.
My favourite part was a swipe board (keep a look out for my videos), where it would show old images of Rotterdam and as you wiped the screen, it would show you new images, to illustrate how much the city has evolved.
This was an amazing day, one in which we ended up quite drunk, which probably wasn’t the best idea considering the next day involves a theme park, but oh well, YOLO and all that malarkey.