On Monday the 30th of May, many of FAECTOR’s active members gathered in front of the Markthal for the until then secret activity of Active Members Day. For this year’s edition, the IntAct Committee had designed our very own living cluedo! As we already have a president for next year, the IntAct Committee had decided we no longer needed our current president Luc Oudenes and killed him (according to the IntAct chairman, who wishes to remain anonymous, Luc was doing “a shitty job” anyway).
Due to Luc’s terrible behaviour (like giving someone a “Nutella pancake” that in fact had marmite on it, almost killing his poor victim), his murder was widely supported and people were willing to provide the IntAct Committee with various murder weapons: a cucumber, a FAECTOR tie, a FAECTOR pen, a Landelijke Econometristen Dag bag and a FAECTOR towel.
However, killing is (in most cases) not an appropriate solution to problems and we were charged with finding out which IntAct member (Alicia, Rogier, Sian, Thomas or Jasper) killed Luc, with which of the five abovementioned weapons and at which of ten places in Rotterdam. We were split up in six teams, each receiving a hint about which of the ten locations to go to. Our team consisted of five members (a severe disadvantage, as many other teams had six, and surely the reason we didn’t win).
Our first clue can be found above. We quickly figured out that ‘pandaleg’ was an anagram for Langepad, near the Kralingse Plas, and we cycled there to make a selfie. With the help of hints, we had to visit all ten locations and make a selfie as proof. After visiting every location, each team received an assignment. After having completed the assignment, we got a hint about both the next location and the murder, murder weapon and murder location.
The puzzle we got at the Langepad was this:
Next to the stairs on the photo, there was a poem by Joop van den Bos (apparently a poet). The first digits of the numbers in the clue referred to line numbers and the second digits to letters in that lines. The numbers above gave the phrase “duurt lang” (very funny IntAct…). We then got the clue about our second location:
Impossible, right? However, one of the teams knew the solution in a matter of seconds! We were not so lucky and spent a lot of time on this. Only after two hints, it became clear that this was a plan of the food court on campus! After puzzles and riddles at the food court and La Cubanita, we arrived at location 4: Divoza. Here we had to restage one of our favourite nights at FAECTOR’s former home and the results can be found below:
At this point, we allowed another group to catch up to us, because Robert Arends was in it and we didn’t want our new president to start his year feeling insecure (of course, we could easily have beaten them). The next stop was the Erasmus University College, and after that we had to find location 6 with (only!) this hint:
After some struggling and some hints, we determined it was Caesarian code for ‘Aboutaleb’, so went to his home to make a selfie with him. Just kidding, we made a picture at the Stadhuis and quickly went for a drink at the Coconuts, where we were tasked with writing a Haiku. Unfortunately, most Haiku’s were somewhat insulting and we’d prefer not to publish them. We continued our journey via Rotterdam Centraal and we were tasked to climb the majestic stairs and make a selfie:
Our hint for location 8 was about the tower of Babylon. From that, we concluded we needed to go to a place called Babylon, so we went to the ‘Babylon Language School’ close by. We made some pictures and we were a nice attraction for the kids, but unfortunately we were terribly wrong. We should have gone to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, where the painting ‘Toren van Babel’ is exhibited (Babel is another name for Babylon). At the museum, we had to imitate one of its paintings:
Our clue for location 9 was this:
Very logically (according to us), we assumed this referred to something Christian and we made a lot of pictures in front of NSR’s building. Unfortunately, we were 100% wrong once more: we should have gone to the Laurenskerk. We can tell you that at least we were not the stupidest group, as one of the teams decided to cycle around the Laurenskerk, while it was literally full of cops because of a police conference. The team members all received a nice €90,- fine!
Via De Dijk, we finally finished our quest at the Kubuswoningen and we ended up in the honourable fifth place (out of six). Everyone was starving after a proper cycling tour through the city and we shamelessly stuffed ourselves with pancakes at the Dutch Diner. The pancakes were delicious (except the one with marmite, really Luc: you deserved to be killed!) and everyone went home satisfied after this great day. Thanks IntAct!
