Day 9 was an interesting and exercise-filled day!
Our day started with an 8:50am breakfast, although I didn’t actually have anything as I was just on time walking out the door this morning! We took the train to TU Delft and then walked for about 15 minutes to get to the Green Village, which is a part of the Delft University’s campus. There, we walked around with our tour guide who explained all of the sustainable innovations being created and tested at the Green Village. I was especially impressed by the tile on the floor that can charge electric bikes and the foot and bike bridge built without any glue and held together using multiple 3D-printed concrete building blocks that snap into each other. The Green Village is a very admirable part of the Delft University’s campus; students are given the space (and many permits) to test their creative ideas on real people to get feedback and ideally introduce their concepts to the market. A house that runs solely on hydrogen power, a building constructed entirely out of glass and silicone, a large wall with one side built with typical brick layering and the other primarily with cow manure to see which one lasts longer… the seemingly endless sustainable projects at the Green Village are so intriguing and educational that I wish we had a similar creative space at Pitt to conceive our own progressive ideas!
After our tour of the Green Village, we walked for about 15 minutes and reached one of the campus dining halls for lunch. We each received a 5-euro meal voucher; with my voucher plus a bit of my own money, I got a vegan jackfruit wrap and a lemon and lychee vitamin drink (it was so very hot and sunny outside!). The wrap was not entirely bad and the drink was pretty okay. After eating, I went to the Delft University store and bought a TU Delft crewneck–I will plan to wear my new merch acquisition at least once during the remainder of our week in Rotterdam! Once we bought our merch, a couple of friends and I walked around campus to explore some of the engineering buildings before meeting up for our climate change workshop. I thought that the X building was very uniquely built and had many interesting facilities inside, including many fun seating areas! The mechanical engineering building was also really cool, with interestingly-shaped student-built vehicles and a mechanical elephant right outside! We then walked over to the Echo building and went to their café from which I bought a vegan croissant (it was pretty good!). After finishing our little snacks, we hiked across campus for about 20 minutes until we reached the building in which we were to have our climate change workshop.
The workshop was quite interesting; we were grouped amongst ourselves and with actual TU Delft students and each group worked with a TU Delft graduate student to participate in the Climate Fresk, organizing multiple cards related to global warming. We had to arrange them in a cause-and-effect pattern and eventually explain our thought process to the larger group. We had fun decorating our poster–eventually called “Into the UnkNOwn”, implying the harmful effects of global warming on our planet Earth–and listening to each other group’s descriptions as well! We then got into one larger group and discussed ways that we can decrease our personal and professional carbon footprint and increase our personal and professional carbon handprint, lining the classroom blackboard with our ideas on post-its. Afterward, we had a group discussion on our next steps and each solidified one goal to maintain: I said that I will start using less plastic packaging from restaurants; specifically, I will try to mitigate ordering food from places on Pitt’s campus that I know only have plastic takeout boxes.
After the workshop, a couple of friends and I took a bus to the main part of the Delft city and explored. We had a nice dinner at De Pizza Bakker–I ordered a non-alcoholic lemon spritz and a marinara pizza with vegan gorgonzola; I have never had real blue cheese before, but I must say that I did not entirely enjoy the vegan gorgonzola due to its overpowering coconutty flavor. The rest of the pizza was great and the drink was good, too, though!
After dinner, we walked back to the bus stop and took a bus to Delft’s central station equivalent from which we took a train back to Rotterdam Centraal. We accidentally sat in the First Class section of the train and only realized when a ticket inspector came over to scan our tickets! He told us that he would let us slide because we are tourists, so we enjoyed a nice two-stop ride in the First Class! From Rotterdam Centraal, we took Tram 8 to get back to the tram stop right across from our hostel.
Overall, today’s events–especially the Green Village tour–were very informative and got me thinking more about how I can contribute to sustainable ideas and technologies! I am excited for our Delta Works tour tomorrow!
