Day Ten began at 7:45 AM, and I unfortunately only got about six hours of sleep. I’ve been finding it hard to get a reasonable sleep in the rooms because of how quickly it heats up. I often wake up drenched in sweat, and the open window are doing nothing to cool the room. The A/C also is non-functioning, which has really begun to affect my sleep. We went to Rotterdam Centraal Station and hopped on the train for a quick ride to Delft, which is where our activity for the day was located. We visited the InHolland University College of Applied Sciences (Aerospace Engineering) in the city, which was fascinating and engaging. We then were treated to a “FreakShake” in Delft city centre by Frank and Dr. Bursick (thank you!), and also a canal tour of the city. Finally, exhaustion was getting the better of me and I hurried back to Rotterdam to sleep. Unfortunately, I somehow slept through my one-hour alarm and didn’t wake until 10:30 PM, to which I had a searing headache. As I write this now, my head is pounding and I’m finding it difficult to focus, so I will keep this blog brief.

The most interesting part of the day was the InHolland University visit by a long shot. When applying to Universities in High School, I briefly considered going into the aviation industry. I have a long love for planes, airports, and aviation in general, probably because of the time I spent in airports flying to Japan and the UK. I decided not to pursue this path because positions in the industry often require U.S. citizenship, which I did not have and had no plans to acquire at the time. For that reason, it was really interesting to get a peek into what an aerospace program might have looked like had I gone down that path. I was particularly interested in the lecture that the professors gave, and I wish I had been less tried to soak up more information. The work that the University was doing in the aerospace and aeronautical fields were extremely interesting, and the visit definitely sparked my lost love for aviation.

One comparison that I made on the trip today outside of the University visit was about the canal network in Delft. While on the canal tour, I could not help but feel that there was great similarity between the canal network on Delft and Amsterdam. In Rotterdam, there are very few canals and there are very few traces of the former canal network. I was surprised while on the canal tour at how closely the Delft canals resembled their Amsterdam counterparts. In fact, I think that I would have a hard time telling the difference between picturesque Amsterdam canals and the pretty streets of Delft. I now wonder if The Hague and Rotterdam also had canal systems that were so similar to the ones of Amsterdam, and I am excited to research more about that topic.

I wish I could have written more today, but my headache is becoming unbearable and I’m afraid that I must go to sleep for another early morning tomorrow.