Today was our last day waking up in Enschede. We packed up and took our bus all the way across the border to Germany, where we visited Munster. The city was quiet, since it was a Sunday and many people were attending church, especially the older generations. Stores were mostly closed today, so after a short tour of the city’s architecture and innovation that our tour guide, Enno, gave the group, we mostly just wandered the city.
Despite most stores being closed for the day, museums were open, and some friends and I decided to go to the Picasso museum. The museum had a few of of Picasso’s artworks, including Le Taureau, which I bought a postcard of. We had plenty of time, so we walked around for a while, and explored the city. We decided to go back to a cafe that we saw at the ending point of our tour, and I got a cappuccino, cucumber and goat cheese sandwich, and a brioche roll.
We hung out at the cafe for a while, and saw some other people from our group. Some of my friends got pastries, which were delicious, and were similar to the ones that we had eaten in the Netherlands (I guess pastries don’t change drastically between countries). Next, we explored further, and meandered around the many bike and walking paths shaded by trees. Just like in the Netherlands, there were still many more people walking and biking than taking cars, but I think that there were a few more cars in Munster than there had been in the Netherlands.
Enno had mentioned on our tour that, due to the bombing of Munster during World War II, Germans were able to rebuild with a more modern and car-friendly standard. We went to a German grocery store to look for snacks, and ultimately didn’t end up getting anything, but we did notice that a lot of the brands were different between the Netherlands and Germany. Next, we went to an authentic German restaurant and ordered some appetizers to hold us over for a late dinner. It was a very pleasant day, and On our way back to the bus, we stopped and got some ice cream, and then we got on the road back to the Netherlands. On the bus, we talked about sustainable features that we noticed about our time in Germany, and people mentioned observations like wooden utensils, minimal water in toilets, and lots of green areas. When we checked into our hotel in Rotterdam, I also noticed that our bathrooms supplied bamboo toilet paper as a sustainable alternative.