For day 2 of our journey within the Netherlands, it was a full day filled with much fun and learning! Starting off our day we had breakfast, met up with our tour guide, Raha, and then were fast on our way to the city center to go on a boat tour around Amsterdam.
On this boat ride, we learned much about the architecture of the city and what how certain kinds of buildings came to be around Amsterdam. One of the more interesting aspects of Amsterdam and its buildings are the dialogue that is spoken through the construction of each unique house. Our captain explained that the width of your house spoke a lot about your societal and financial status and that the bigger the front of your house was, the more wealth you and your family had. Navigating all throughout the canals, seeing all of the renovated and abandoned houseboats and the many, many bridges that connect the various streets of Amsterdam, it was truly a sight to see the city from the water. What was also a big feature of this tour, was the different types of architecture and houses around the area. One portion you have apartment buildings that were originally warehouses used for storing items that were being imported and exported and the other you have literal homes on the water building off of the foundation of a boat.
After a short lunch, we came back to a walking tour from Ian Wagenhuis, and learned a lot more about the history of Amsterdam’s history in trading to even the background behind the structure of its city. He spoke a ton about the structure of the city from how the homes were originally built on hills in order to not allow water to seep into many homes, to how older buildings are being on the spot renovated, by solidifying the inner structure of the walls, to keep the buildings from falling or tilting even further. One other aspect that he spoke on heavily was the city’s implementation of structures to keep the city from falling apart due to the canals and canal walls being in motion. The city has started to put steel connectors and walls in to then try to hold all of the old brick walls together to slow down the motion of the walls. To try and make this feature more aesthetically pleasing for tourists, the city has planted many plants and flowers within these walls to make it seem like everything is business as usual. This use of essentially trouble shooting both the aesthetics and construction of the city was a very interesting aspect since they are trying to save their city as well as save one of their most important industries, tourism.
After our tour, we headed to a chocolate company that was started by Ian and his wife Salome, which focuses on trying to right the wrongs of the chocolate industry, such as deforestation, monoculture, and child slavery. Their company, Cacao and Spice, taught much about the inner workings of the chocolate industry and highlighted much of their sustainability and societal efforts to right the wrongs of big corporations. Salome explained that many big corporations just cut down entire forests and grow cacao in a monoculture, which force the farmers to spray a type of “sunscreen” on the trees, and they also use child labor to make their money. Cacao and Spice emphasizes and supports smaller and more sustainable chocolate companies which is a step in the right direction for the entire chocolate industry. While the trip goes on, I am excited to hear more about the sustainability efforts of more Netherlands companies and how they tackle the problems of today with methods that have been unheard of ever before.
(A view from inside Cacao and Spice, after trying their wide selection of chocolates)