After a good nights sleep, day 2 was on its way. Breakfast in the hostel was amazing and I enjoyed their fresh fruits and coffee. Today I had the pleasure of hearing from Karel Bockstael, a sustainability advocate who used to be the VP of Sustainability at KLM Airlines. He taught our group the importance of sustainability in the airline industry. I did not realize how much energy it takes to fly a plane and how much power each person uses per flight. One flight from Philly to Amsterdam uses the same amount of electricity as a person running 150 drying machines, and that’s only per person! Hearing about different sustainable energy options was quite interesting. Although all of the options, such as electric batteries, hydrogen cells, and e-fuels do have promising solutions, I still think it is too early to be fully implementing these solutions in airlines. Hydrogen shows the most promise however, I don’t know how a plane such as a Boeing 737 would be able to hold fuel cells without a complete redesign. It is also more expensive to fly with renewable energy, so companies and businesses might have a harder time promoting responsible flying if it is much cheaper to fly with kerosene emissions. From a business standpoint, sustainability is hard to enforce while still keeping costs down and revenues up. However, I think it is more important to save our Earth than our pockets.

Walking around the city was exciting, and it was nice to see the strips of canals running through each block. The city is very walkable and I’m getting the hang of how to walk around without almost getting hit by a bike. The bench from “The Fault in Our Stars” had a scenic view of the canal. I ordered an avocado and feta sandwich for lunch, which was incredible. The Dutch really know how to make amazing and fresh food.

The Anne Frank House was my favorite part of the day. It was very educational and impactful to be able to walk around her hiding space. I did not realize that she lived with multiple other families so I was surprised when I saw the entire living areas for all of those hiding from Nazi Germany. I found it very sad how Anne Frank wrote about the D-day events and almost being liberated since she unfortunately was still captured. Seeing the original bookshelf used to hide the back of Otto Frank’s office was very impactful since it was the biggest cover between Anne and the Nazi Soldiers.