With the second to last day of the trip, we had a couple of tours to get to know the city even better. We had many days to explore on our own, but it was great to see the city from a local and from a tour perspective. I was very excited about the beginning part where a local, Rob, took us around the parts of the city that showed efforts of incorporating nature and sustainability. Most of these places were water collections. There was a place outside of a school that collected water by slanting parts of the around and pumping it into a canal once filled. These also doubled as places like a basketball court for the students and places to sit. It was great to see how water management and sustainability for the ecosystem were made to coincide with the economy around them. It only fills up a couple times a year, but the fact that it’s set in a place where most people wouldn’t even notice is still a great way to be sustainable about conserving water. This makes me wonder what measures Pittsburgh has in place considering we get lots of rain throughout the year that could be collected.

The next part of our day was a tour of central Rotterdam. We started at City Hall, which was only 1 of 4 buildings in Rotterdam that weren’t destroyed by the bombardment from World War II from May 10^th-May 14^th. Starting here also showed how much the Dutch were able to build up their city since then and shows their resilience despite the devasting effects of the war. We the moved on and walked around many places like outdoor shopping centers until we got to the museumpark. This place houses all stored art in one place rather than spread out. It looked very similar to The Bean in Chicago, with it reflective surface but this one is known as The Pot. I also liked how it looked like they had their own mini garden or place of nature on the roof of The Pot. It goes to show how much the Dutch try to incorporate nature into places like the city where this can be hard because of lack of space. Before the end of the tour we stopped to see the interesting architecture of the cubed houses which were very intricate and fun to look at! To end the day, we went to The Markthal which is a big building that houses many different types of places to eat, shop, and even some apartments on the outer sides. The group was also treated to homemade stroopwafels, and this time I got a Nutella one that was amazing with milk!