Today we visited Zaanse Schans, a village outside of Amsterdam. This town was going for the “traditional Dutch” vibe, and had things such as windmills, a clog store, and a Henri Willig cheese store. This cheese story was the site of our company visit today, though the presentation was rather short. We learned how they made their cheese, and how they tried to use every part of the process in order to be more sustainable. For example, 90% of the milk they use to make cheese gets turned into liquid whey, while only 10% gets turned into solid curds. Instead of simply getting rid of this whey as waste, they turn it into beer, which they also turn some of into cheese. This drastically reduces waste, as more of their products are able to be sold. The benefits of this are obvious, as they can make more money by selling these products rather than throwing them away. This is another example of sustainability helping a business be more profitable, which would give companies like this an incentive to be more sustainable. This visit was rather enlightening, even if it was a bit short.

After our company visit we had three hours of free time, so we wandered the town and got to see a lot of farm animals, birds, and windmills. After our free time we took the bus to our Hostel in Rotterdam. This ride once again showed a sudden change from urban to rural to urban again, something that is striking to someone used to urban sprawl like myself. Once we got to the Hostel, it was a lot like our previous hotel. For example, we had to wear wristbands, and each room had a combination of two beds side by side to form one large bed and a bunk bed. However, our hostel had two sets of bunk beds, and we had to make our beds our selves. I’ve heard that that hostels usually don’t even provide things like bed sheets, so I wonder if the reason that our beds weren’t made is because usually they don’t even have sheets in the first place. This is obviously different from a standard hotel, but I must assume that staying at a hostel is much cheaper, otherwise no one would stay at them. Often we got everything set up we went out to dinner and got to start seeing a bit of Rotterdam. The city had to be almost completely rebuilt after the Second World War, and that can be seen in the more modern looking buildings. Another difference from Amsterdam is that I noticed a greater prevalence of cars in this city than in Amsterdam. Bikes are still very common, of course, but walking down the streets here felt a bit more similar to Pittsburgh than Amsterdam did. These are just the few differences I noticed in my short time here, but I look forward to learning more about this city in the coming week.