This morning we visited InHolland Rotterdam, which is another branch of the university we saw a few days ago. This branch of the school focuses on Business, Finance, and Law, so it was a bit more relevant for me than the Delft campus.

They started our visit off by giving us a tour of the neighborhood around the campus and discussing the logistics of it. During World War 2, about 85% of Rotterdam was destroyed by a series of bombs. Most of the historic areas of Rotterdam are gone now, so it is a very modern city. And, it’s still being developed. Throughout our tour, InHolland faculty referred to “place making,” which is the idea of creating a place that is more than just the sum of its parts. The goal is to make a place that brings people together and makes them happy and healthy. They also talked about how sustainability plays a major role in urban planning here in Rotterdam. They maximize green spaces to absorb groundwater, clean the air, and make people happy and comfortable.

Also on our tour, we saw some homes on the water. Houseboats are common in Amsterdam, but these really aren’t boats at all. They are houses situated on top of a dock. Living on water solves 2 problems for the Dutch: potential flooding and lack of housing. The homes on the water we saw today were AirBnBs. They’re experiments to see if living on water is actually a reasonable solution for many people.

Following our tour, we went inside the InHolland Rotterdam main building for a delicious lunch and a presentation about the university. Lastly at inHolland, we all competed in some Netherlands trivia. While I cannot say that I did that well, I definitely did better than I would have 2 weeks ago!

After our visit, we had free time for the rest of the day, so about half of our group went to Den Haag (The Hague), which is the seat of the Dutch government. It was just a 30 minute metro ride to get from Rotterdam to the Hague, which I thought was really crazy! They are two major metropolitan cities, and they’re so close together. I wish I could take a subway from Pittsburgh to New York City! Anyway, the Hague was a beautiful city with a very nice shopping center. We went into a couple of vintage clothing stores, and I actually found a Ben Roethlisberger jersey in one – score! This was a very successful day InHolland. Check back tomorrow for my last Netherlands blog post :(.