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Hello and welcome back to Oosterdam Day 6! Today we’re heading to Rotterdam to visit the world’s first floating farm!! Woooooo!
Our morning started out bright and early at 7:15 with a hotel breakfast, garnished with a few generous slices of truffle cheese from Zaanse Schans. Today we were to board a train and head towards a major port city in the Netherlands. After several delays (and a few emergencies), we finally hit the rails.
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It’s not actually a clock tower, gotcha!—it’s a wind gauge that displays the cardinal directions. See how the “east” direction is implicated by an O? That’s because it stands for oost, the Dutch word for east, and the name of this blog series.
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After some miscellaneous activities, transport, lunch, sprinting back to the hotel, whatnot, we regrouped and made our way to stop numero uno—Rotterdam’s floating farm. The Netherlands is a country built on the arduous labor of those who spent thousands of years waging war on the ocean around them. Though civilization would eventually emerge victorious, sea levels have only continued to rise, especially in the face of increased climate change. Thus, the engineers and the architects of the Netherlands have never quite given up their fight. Around ⅓ of the country is underwater, actually.
The world is expected to change drastically in the next thirty years, and it may be realistic to transition to waterborne waystations to produce our food like floating farms, gardens, and so on. The Rotterdam floating farm features around 20-30 cows on a massive ranch-like raft. There, the livestock graze in peace, completely unbothered by their unique circumstances. They sustain off of locally sourced food products from pretty peculiar sources—I distinctly recall our speaker mentioning grass from sports fields, and we’d later see orange peels and the like in the feed as we walked by. The milking and composting are both automated, and the waste produced by the cows like fecal matter and urine are recycled into new material. The raft is incredibly stable, and there is little to no waste. That seems to be a philosophy of the Dutch—to create as little waste as possible.
After a tour of the main raft (there’s a smaller raft comprised of solar panels directly adjacent to the main body), we went back to the souvenir shop to sample a variety of milks and cheeses. And the product is good. If we can diversify into other floating structures, I genuinely wonder if one day people can make a living out there on the water.
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What came next was one of the best things I’d done so far on this trip, in my opinion. We were let loose to walk around and explore a bit, but after that we boarded a cruiser and perused the local waters for over an hour. I broke off from the group for a bit to enjoy some truffle cheese and crackers to myself, and it was really nice getting to unwind. I put an earbud in and watched the city go by with wind on my face and truffle on my tongue. Antoinette brought me a fizzy soda later, which enhanced the experience even further. It was therapeutic, certainly.
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After hopping off the boat, we made our way to our final destination—dinner. We were a little apprehensive, especially after yesterday, but we’d no idea it’d be the best meal of the trip so far. After a modicum of waiting, servers approached us from behind with massive, heaping platters of rice and tomatoes, with four skewers at least two feet long balanced precariously on top. The skewers were spoiled with beef, chicken, and various vegetables. The entire thing was grilled to a crisp. Not a single thing was over or undercooked. The platters were accompanied by bowls of cilantro salad, cream of mushroom soup, potato wedges, and various sauces and seasonings. Once again, highlight of the night. What a pleasant surprise, and a perfect conclusion to the evening.
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Today’s word of the day is watermeloensap, meaning watermelon juice. I used to drink watermelon juice whenever I could as a kid, but when I saw it on the menu today I realized how long it had been since I’d had some. Drinking it took me back to summers in China with my mother and my sister. I miss those memories.
Ah, well. That’s why I’m in the Netherlands, though. To make new ones.
That’ll be all for today.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you tomorrow.