Our group began the move to our second location of the trip today: Enschede. Enschede is home to the University of Twente where we will attend lectures, tour a different type of city planning with different needs, and meet other student engineers.

Our first stop was a lecture on waste water management before visiting a prime example of such known as the Kristalbad. The Kristalbad is not only a large nature preserve but also serves as a form of water management. The area serves as a natural method of waste water purification as sewage and runoff flows down from Enschede. There are fish in the water to take up the phosphorous that sewage plants and water treatment facilities have difficulty removing on their own while the water is also naturally filtered through the plants and movement of water across the area.

To end the day, we enjoyed a social hour with the engineering students at the University of Twente where we enjoyed soda and pizza together. We shared similar interests in politics with many of the Dutch students and were able to connect with them on many levels while playing foosball and other games. While with the students, something we noticed about the academic culture of Dutch colleges that differs not only from Pitt but from American school culture entirely is that they typically do not attend college in a linear fashion. Many of the students we talked to had taken several gap years to become more involved within their campus and to have more fun before entering the working world. One of our tour guides earlier in the day had been at the school for eight years himself. Meanwhile, many US students can not afford to do this as college is more expensive and the need to move through education to make money to pay off your debt from school is stronger than the desire to enjoy life.

While on our drive from Amsterdam to Enschede, I noticed the bridges installed for wildlife to pass over highway systems safely. We do not have this in the US so it was fascinating to see not only how they worked as ducks passed overhead but see them in person as well. I noticed that on Dutch roads, there is little to no presence of roadkill or dead wildlife. My guess is that the wildlife bridges help prevent this which keeps the roads clean, safe, and beautiful. This is an aspect of sustainability in the wildlife sector as the bridges above the highways allow animals to be protected from moving vehicles and still access all areas of their natural habitat. Without the bridge, they would be forced to cross the highway or blocked from other pastures and hunting grounds due to human influence. These bridges preserve the lives of animals and keep nature flowing.