I loved today. It was the perfect mixture of learning, shopping, eating, walking, and just having fun in general. We started the day at 9am, where we ate breakfast and left the Generator to go to Utrecht for the day! We did the public transport routine and met with Sophia, who lives in Utrecht. We first went to the place where Aurea Imaging resides. We walked through the building (which I thought was really cool), and met with a member of the company. He gave us a presentation on the day-to-day operations of Aurea Imaging and their improvements in the agriculture industry. They are the leading crop intelligence provider for fruit providers and breeders, and have farms all over the world (one is even in New Jersey!). They aim to make farming easier, more sustainable, and more customizable with their emerging technologies. After the presentation, we all ate lunch at the company cafe, which was delicious, and headed back to the bus to take us to downtown Utrecht. 

Utrecht was even greater than I imagined. Sophia walked us around and showed us her favorite spots, including a gelato spot called IJssalon Pistacchio (thank you Dr. Bursics for the ice cream!). The canals in the city were beautiful, and I wish we had time to sit down at a restaurant by the water; they all looked so cute! Another cool part of the tour was this huge church, which was beautiful inside. 

A couple of us decided to stay in Utrecht a little longer to walk around and pop into some shops; we didn’t want to leave just yet. As much as we loved the extra time, when it was time to go home, we had no idea where to go. We ran around the city trying to find Utrecht Central Station, and eventually had to track down a local to lead us there (she was very nice and helpful, fortunately). We got on the train just in time, but something went wrong, and we had to get off at a stop early. With the hundreds of people in the station at the same time, it was really difficult trying to navigate our way home. After a packed bus ride and running to our train stop, we finally made it back to the Generator. Overall, today was a really fun day, and I’m glad I got to experience a part of the Netherlands that I never knew existed!