“Wow, Rotterdam really has great architecture, but how on earth do you live in something like that?!” you think to yourself while taking a photograph. You’re on vacation and while all your friends stayed in Amsterdam to do the typical ‘Dutch experience’, you didn’t feel like parading the Red Light District while getting high on God knows what type of drug… So you went to visit Rotterdam and you love every moment of it.

After taking the photograph you turn around and notice a stunning girl in the distance. She’s about to enter a big horseshoe shaped building. Long copper red hair, a nice figure and a pair of crazy long legs beneath a red summer dress. For a moment the world stops. You can’t help yourself but to stare stupidly at her like a twelve year old schoolboy. She is so beautiful, it almost hurt your eyes. The elegance, the grace….

And then she trips over one of the steps and the magic moment is over. She quickly regains balance though and enters the hall. You rush after her but alas… she disappeared in the crowd. Not sure what to do you, you look around. And then you see a wallet lying on the exact spot the girl stood only moments earlier…

You pick up the wallet and look inside. In it you find a picture of the girl and money. A lot of money. There must be four or five hundred euro in there. “I have to find her and give back the money,” you think to yourself.

You enter the horseshoe shaped building.

201009 EDIT: I made some necessary changes in the text of #2. In the hints below you can see the adjusted original text. This new adjustment you find in the puzzle can well be another hint.


SOLUTIONS:

puzzle 1: Key here was reading carefully. Some just googled the picture and didnt get why that answer was wrong. The picture is the photo you take of the building before you turn around and see the girl IN THE DISTANCE entering A HORSESHOE SHAPED BUILDING. That's the Martkhal.

puzzle 2: You needed to find out that 'the secret garden', Lara, Lizzie, Sybil and David Copperfield are all movies currently playing at Cinerama movie theater, which is situated 6/700 meters southwest of the Markthal. Unexpected international google results made this one hard at first but with the added clues a lot of you were able to find it...

puzzle 3: Here you find yourself in the garden of city hall. You needed to find out that the mayor of Rotterdam (important guy, fancy suit, acts like he owns the place) is a Moroccan guy named Aboutaleb (first Moroccan mayor in the Netherlands, pretty big deal. Speaks out about immigration, extremism, law and order etc etc. Was asked to be on a WH extremism task force led by Biden. Regularly appears in / is covered by (international) media).

puzzle 4: easypeasy: type in irish pub in google maps and find out Paddy Murphy’s is closest.

puzzle 5: I expected this one to be the hardest. You had to combine a few clues to minimize the list of possible hiding spots (or not and just try every possible hiding spot you can find in hope of bruteforcing the puzzle...) 1. as the crow flies = in a straight line. So 12 mins at 10 km/h gives you a nice 2 km radius around Paddy's. 2. zigzagging through trafic, later trees and bushes indicates the hiding spot should be in a green area like a park. The extra hint told you she's hiding somewhere indoor. 3. the girl ran 12 mins at 13.5 km/h and therefor covered a distance of 2.7 km. Google maps will tell you the walking distance from Paddy's to the Euromast is exactly that. The Euromast is a well known (and googable) land mark in Rotterdam.

puzzle 6 well, you deserved a break. Accepted answers were girl, goodies, girl and goodies.

I hope you all enjoyed the story and the puzzles. I tried to be as helpful as possible to those who got stuck. :D

View attached image.
3 years ago*

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reserved for hints

HINT for #2 (and in general): google and google maps are your friends. Pay close attention to the directions given.
HINT for #2 Try googling the thing you're looking for. That might provide an useful insight. EDIT: Indeed most regions don't give the google hits you need. That was unexpected. I updated the description to offer better/more clues: "The woman didn’t hear the entire conversation, but she did hear the girl talk about Lara, Lizzie and Sibyl. She heard her end the conversation by saying she was going to ‘the secret garden’ and she’d be there in a few minutes. You are not sure if this information helps. “Did you see which way she was going? The woman points west/south west. Unsure what else to do you start walking west too."
ADDED some additional correct answers to #2
HINT for #2: 'a few minutes'? Well, that shouldn't be more than 10/11 minutes, tops. Right?

HINT for #5: Rule number one for any girl being chased by a creepy man: hiding behind trees in a park is not a good idea. If (when?) he sees you he can easily drag you away to a less busy part of the park and all the bushes and trees will make it hard for people to notice there's something wrong.... So maybe find a building with lots of people in it to hide?

HINT for the retirementtopic: d4WjI

3 years ago*
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How are the 5 solvers of #2 doing? Does it look like #2 is unnecessarily difficult or are they stuck after that too?

3 years ago
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Most of them get to the end :)

mmm, #2 shouldn't be that hard though. I'm quite surprised so many of you get stuck there. I added some additional answers and additional hints to make it easier. Maybe it has something to do with different google results in different regions but then again the people who solved #2 come from different countries...

3 years ago
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i don't know what i might be doing wrong on #5

3 years ago
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Bump! Stuck on the second puzzle, any clues there?

3 years ago
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Same. Tried about 10 things.

3 years ago
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Same

Edit: tried about 30 more things. still the fail is strong

3 years ago*
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3 years ago
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I gave it another go but still no luck. not claiming i got the correct answer but also not sure how itstoohard handles the situation where you already guessed something prior to new answers being added... e.g. if I get "You already guessed that", is it bc its still wrong or bc it was wrong before so its no longer considered?

oh well, guess i'm too dumb. thanks anyway for the puzzle.

3 years ago
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feel free to contact me on steam to discuss this. it might give me some insight on why so many stumble at #2

3 years ago
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ok sent you an invite. don't mind running through what i was doing if it helps

3 years ago
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Lol...now I am just completely stuck on the 2nd puzzle. I think that I've entered every park name in Rotterdam. :D :D :D

3 years ago
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Poor thing's never getting her wallet back, lol.

3 years ago
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Also stuck on second puzzle, can't find the correct answer.
Have tried at least 30 diff answers haha.
Have a bump, as well. Nice puzzle.

3 years ago
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Thanks Waxlor, now with the new hints and a clear mind, I managed to reach puzzle 5, taking some time with it now, didn't reach the hint time yet.

3 years ago
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puzzle #5 requires 3 different hints to be combined. Some use only one or two of the hints though. Combined with some guessing/logical thinking that works too.

3 years ago
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Sure, I'm trying all of them, and checking some different directions. Very interesting stuff you made here, kind Sir.

3 years ago
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I do my best :) let me know if/when you get it

3 years ago
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Dittooooooo

3 years ago
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Lol - I assure you my head was already there. I'm just missing something. I'll give it another go later, but thanks for the tip!

3 years ago
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the question is 'are you looking for the right thing?'

3 years ago
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View attached image.
3 years ago
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This was more about the cube houses
These windows are scary to think about

3 years ago
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ahh, I thought one more getting stuck... :P

3 years ago
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My sister lived in rotterdam, not those houses though.

3 years ago
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I had no idea you were here, Waxlor!

Hope you enjoyed it.

Now I want to link my RandstadRail event. :p

3 years ago
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edit: Got it now. Thanks for the fun puzzle :)

3 years ago*
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Apparently wiki is wrong? I don't get it.

3 years ago
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Me neither and i live in the netherlands. :x Is it dutch, is it translated?

Lots of ways to write it, techinically it's also not 1 building, they are several.

3 years ago*
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I tried english and dutch, single and plural, it's all wrong XD

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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3 years ago
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first.

3 years ago
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After taking the photograph you turn around and notice a stunning girl >> in the distance <<. She’s about to enter a big horseshoe shaped building.

3 years ago
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Ah yeah like you said in another comment, i wasn't looking at the right thing, think Fallenkal had the same. :p Found it thanks.

I am usually too dumb for the other parts still though.

3 years ago
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Oh, yeah like Lugum said. I didn't think that part was important :D I thought it was narrative fluff. Thanks ^^

3 years ago
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my poetic heart bleeds... :P

3 years ago
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Wait...so it's not the building in the picture? It's some other building? Jesus.

3 years ago
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The picture is the photograph you take in the beginning of the story.

3 years ago
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I figured it out...but I'm gonna have to get some sleep and save my brain for the rest of these things tomorrow...lol. :D

3 years ago
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good luck tomorrow!

3 years ago
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Bump for solved, thanks again for the fun puzzle 😊

3 years ago
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Nice puzzle even if I have no idea for second place...

3 years ago
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Thanks, I think I'll try again tomorrow.

3 years ago
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can't even solve the first one hahaha

3 years ago
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Read carefully.

After taking the photograph you turn around and notice a stunning girl >> in the distance <<. She’s about to enter a big horseshoe shaped building.

3 years ago
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Oooooh now i get it, thanks!

3 years ago*
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:D now let's see if you can solve #2; most struggle with that one...

3 years ago
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Okay, made some progress, now i'm stuck at the 5th, this one's hard, almost there!

Edit: Enough for today, tried +100 places in a radius and none of them were it hahaha

3 years ago*
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I don't get it. I got #1 in like 1 second, and the hint on 2 was the opposite of helpful. It gave me an idea, but everything seems like pure guesswork on how to find the location.

3 years ago
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let me know if the 2nd hint helps

3 years ago
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I was going to add you to discuss, but this comment includes everything I was going to tell you. Tried a couple other things that weren't mentioned there, too.

3 years ago
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ADDED some additional correct answers to #2
HINT for #2: 'a few minutes'? Well, that shouldn't be more than 10/11 minutes, tops. Right?

3 years ago
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I really don't know what you want. Before the recent clue, I tried using street view, walking directions. Copious searches, etc. I see you're accepting new answers, but I have no idea what I've already entered, and I really don't think sitting through 30 second wrong timers is a good use of time.

Thanks for the puzzle. Been here since 0 people had part 2 right, and I have no idea what to do.

View attached image.
3 years ago
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sometimes what you look for is right in front of you...

3 years ago
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Yeah, I tried the things on the image I linked. Do I literally put keyboard? Computer? Phone?

3 years ago
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HINT for #5: Rule number one for any girl being chased by a creepy man: hiding behind trees in a park is not a good idea. If (when?) he sees you he can easily drag you away to a less busy part of the park and all the bushes and trees will make it hard for people to notice there's something wrong.... So maybe find a building with lots of people to hide?

3 years ago
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I give up

View attached image.
3 years ago*
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stuck on 2? I might give another hint tomorrow if too many stumble on that one...

3 years ago
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It isn't a coffeeshop (and with us it's not about the coffee)? But you do understand a lot too, after been there. :p

3 years ago*
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yep #2

3 years ago
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let me know if the 2nd hint helps

3 years ago
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Ok, seems I'll be keeping those money for myself. I honestly tried to return the wallet, so I won't feel guilty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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Sounds pretty close to my experience.

3 years ago
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ADDED some additional correct answers to #2
HINT for #2: 'a few minutes'? Well, that shouldn't be more than 10/11 minutes, tops. Right?

3 years ago
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I really thought I got it when I found a vegan restaurant :(

3 years ago
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ADDED some additional correct answers to #2
HINT for #2: 'a few minutes'? Well, that shouldn't be more than 10/11 minutes, tops. Right?

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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Pepsi MAX!
maximum sugar
no taste

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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I wonder what a short walk is, and how precise the direction is.

3 years ago
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ADDED some additional correct answers to #2
HINT for #2: 'a few minutes'? Well, that shouldn't be more than 10/11 minutes, tops. Right?

3 years ago
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ADDED some additional correct answers to #2
HINT for #2: 'a few minutes'? Well, that shouldn't be more than 10/11 minutes, tops. Right?

3 years ago
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feel free to add me on steam to discuss this. Your experience might provide some insights on why so many people have difficulties solving #2...

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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Bump for solved. Interesting journey through Rotterdam ;)

3 years ago
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Yay! congratz!

3 years ago
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Well, gotta say, 2nd one was harder than expected since my Google didn't show the correct thing in the results.

3 years ago*
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I updated some of the story in the hope to remedy this.

3 years ago
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Now I'm stuck on #5, tried many locations but no luck. Seeing how there are 18 solves already, guess I'm too dumb to tie all three hints together :D

3 years ago
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I might provide a hint on #5 later; depending on how many get stuck there.

3 years ago
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HINT for #5: Rule number one for any girl being chased by a creepy man: hiding behind trees in a park is not a good idea. If (when?) he sees you he can easily drag you away to a less busy part of the park and all the bushes and trees will make it hard for people to notice there's something wrong.... So maybe find a building with lots of people to hide?

3 years ago
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End of vacation bump!

3 years ago
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Bump!

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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Bump for solved. Thnx for the puzzle and unexpected ending

3 years ago
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yay!

3 years ago
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Still not able to figure 5th question, i tried +130 answers and none were the right one. The hint didn't help since that was the first thinkg i was doing hahaha

3 years ago
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3 years ago*
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awww lucky you!

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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3 years ago
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that's a bit too much information for the public eye to see... Please delete the specific info.

3 years ago
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Done, sorry

3 years ago
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glad you made it!

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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Even with the new hints, I still can't find #2... I'm starting to think this old woman has some earing problems...

3 years ago
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hahahaha.

one more then: look for the common ground in both the added part and the old part of the story. something is connecting it all.

3 years ago
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Not sure I would have got #2 without the hint above. Thanks for the great puzzle.

3 years ago
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awesome! The additional hint were indeed necessary due to unexpected google regional results.

3 years ago
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Thanks for the treasure hunt, here is some mood music for the ride.

3 years ago
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very appropriate!

3 years ago
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Bump for solved! At least it's possible with new text.

3 years ago
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BUMP!

View attached image.
3 years ago
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