Today, we learned about windmills. We had a lecture on them, where we learned some of the physics behind them, learned about some of the innovations used today, and actually saw them when we visited Pure Energie. But before that, we took another tour around Twente and learned about how their campus is sustainable. The most interesting thing I learned on the tour was about a tree. Dutch law states that if you cut down a tree over a certain height, you must replant it after cutting it down, but the university instead just relocated the tree. This was an interesting thing to learn, and it makes me question whether the U.S. also has similar laws. This also seems like a good way to preserve trees in the Netherlands. After this, we took a bus over to Pure Energie. While here, we got to see what we learned in lecture happening in real life. We got to see windmills change their direction to match different wind directions and also the serrated edges on the windmills to help reduce noise, all things discussed in the lecture. We also learned that the company has a whole trading room like on Wall Street. This team is setting the selling price for the energy they generate, and they are also predicting when they need to rotate the windmills based on wind conditions. It was very interesting learning about this, as I didn’t realize how complex Windmills are and how much thought goes into them. For sustainability, these are very good as wind can be found everywhere, but with different wind conditions, they can’t always be the most reliable, as they explained to us.

After this visit, we headed over to a small town called Elburg. This is an old medieval town with a very rich history, which we learned about on a tour. We saw that some houses were built straight into the walls that surrounded the city, but most of these walls no longer remain. We also got to see the church and its beautiful interior and exterior, and learned about some religious paintings on the ceilings. After this, we learned about its Jewish history, especially during the war. It was very sad to hear some of the stories told to us, and it really makes you realize how many people in the Netherlands and around the world struggled during these times. After this, we headed back to Twente, where we saw multiple people camping out for the Batavierenrace. It is a giant relay race over 175 km in teams of 25. It is a massive event, and over 600 teams participated this year. It was crazy to see how many people showed up to this event and how many came from all over to celebrate it. Overall, it was a great day today, and I definitely learned a lot.