Day 12 was quite entertaining and a bittersweet end to our educational experience in the Netherlands!
After I munched on an apple for breakfast, our day started with a laid-back 10:10am walk to Rotterdam Centraal from where we took a tram to get to the Floating Farm. The Floating Farm is quite literally a farm that is floating on the water, currently containing cows and eventually also containing a vertical garden. The Farm is powered entirely by solar energy that comes from the solar panels that line a floating platform on the water. The cows are all bred without any cruelty; they are fed (with no extra chemicals!) and taken care of regularly and can milk themselves whenever they want using the automatic mechanical milking machine at the side of their shed. The Farm can store rainwater on its roof; the rainwater is then filtered and directed into the shed as drinking water for the cows. The cows’ poop and urine is cleaned regularly from from shed by an autonomous robot that collects and separates the poop from the urine; the poop is dried, pressed into pellets, and sold as a natural fertilizer, while the urine is filtered and used to water plants to prevent ammonia pollution. The Floating Farm is adaptive to the climate; the Farm is anchored to a fixed pole which can move up and down based on the rising sea level to prevent the Farm from going underwater. I was very impressed by all of the sustainability efforts of the Floating Farm and the owners’ persistence in convincing the Rotterdam authorities that the Farm should be constructed. I also enjoyed getting to pet the cows and even feed one of them a cookie!
After exploring the Floating Farm and getting a free cow keychain, we walked for some time until we reached a water taxi stop from which we rode a water taxi to get to RDM. Once we arrived, we had our lunch in the RDM café; I ate my quinoa salad that I had packed from Albert Heijn yesterday, which was not that tasty. I also ordered a non-alcoholic ginger beer from the café, which was my first of its kind and which tasted very good! After lunch, we met our tour guide, Peter, who showed us inside RDM. There, I learned that RDM is a large indoor space for a mix of university students, scientists, and entrepreneurs to test out their creative ideas, similar to the Green Village that we visited earlier at TU Delft. The RDM area used to be an abandoned shipyard, but the Rotterdam Port Authorities decided to refurbish the area into a more useful and progressive space. RDM has a designated section for university students to work on their class projects and a separate section for businesses; in the latter section, entrepreneurs can apply to rent a marked floor space to build and test their creative designs that aim to promote a sustainable future in some way. For instance, we observed one woman’s project of 3D-printing parts of a coral reef using concrete and sand that can actually be placed in the water and have algae naturally grow over it in order to help rebuild destroyed coral reefs and promote biodiversity. We also observed a few engineers working on a smaller-scale hyperloop system vehicle–I find the idea of a hyperloop vehicle system (essentially a magnetized chute-like path for a public transportation vehicle) so very intriguing and I want to explore more in this field! I was quite impressed that Rotterdam places such a high value on sustainability; I was shocked to learn that RDM does not allow an entrepreneur to rent RDM spaces if they do not have a plan for how their business will help promote a sustainable future.
We were given a thorough tour of each of RDM’s facilities–save for the few confidential projects that they are currently working on–and then took our daily group Pitt picture. Afterward, we walked over to a bus stop and rode the bus to a metro station from where we took a metro to Stadhuis (a station near our hostel) and went to Albert Heijn. There, I bought a vegan tiramisu and a packet of vegan cookies–both were very good! We then rode a tram back to our hostel, where I packed up all of my luggage and got ready for our farewell group dinner. We arrived early enough to explore the area–we found a climbable wall and took some fun pictures! I then dined on a weird spread of skewered vegetables, rice, tabouleh, falafel, fries, vegan mayo, marinara sauce, and pickles. The combination of food items did not match! For dessert, I enjoyed a cup of vegan chocolate ice cream which tasted sort of like a rich cake!
After our dinner, all of us went to the Duke of Tokyo where we had a wonderful 2-hour karaoke session. I enjoyed singing along with my peers and posessing the mic a few times myself!
Overall, today was quite fun-filled and exhilarating. I am sad that our time in the Netherlands is already over; I will miss visiting this wonderful place with this wonderful group of people. I have learned so much and am excited to implement what I have learned back at Pitt! For now, safe travels and see you soon!
