Today was our last day at the University of Twente. We started the day with a walking sustainability tour of Enschede, where our tour guide told us about the different ways they try to prevent flooding in the Netherlands. Much of the Netherlands is flat land, so when it rains, the water stays still. Enschede,…
Day 6: Wind Energy and Elburg
To start off the day, we attended a 9 am lecture about wind energy. The professor talked about the different ways that turbines work, as well as some formulas on their sustainable energy. During this lecture, we learned about lift, drag, and power, and the ways in which you calculate them. This was a very…
Day 5: UT and Kristalbad
This morning we started early with a 6:45 am wake up call to get all of our packed luggage downstairs ready to load onto the private transfer to Enschede. After a quick breakfast, we drove the 1 hour from Amsterdam to the University of Twente. The University of Twente, created in 1961, is a public…
Day 4: Farmlands and History
Today we started our day by taking the public transportation to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans, a historic neighborhood in Zaandam. The town is best known for its preserved 18th-19th century windmills, traditional timber houses, and artisan workshops. Here we started with a walk through the town up to a ledge with a lookout of the town….
Day 3: Tulip Fields, Floating Houses, and Architecture
Today we started with a one-hour private transfer to a tulip farm. We visited de Tulperij Lisse, which translates to the tulip craze. Since we went at the end of the season, many of the tulip fields had already been mowed down in order for the tulip bulbs to grow in size. Our tour guide…
Day 2: Hunts and Jeans
After a full night of rest and relaxation, we started the day with a scavenger hunt around Amsterdam. We started the hunt at the Church of Saint Nicholas and ended it all the way in Waterloopen. During this scavenger hunt, we got a good look at the architecture of the city. As you walk through…
Day 13: The Historical Hague
Our last day here offered a bit of a break from the engineering heavy topics to focus back on dutch history and culture. Enno gave us a tour of the Hague, the home of all dutch politics, legislatation, and embassies. It felt very refreshing to learn about a political system that was actually healthy, normal,…
Dakakkar, Watersnoodmuseum, and Collective Memory
We had a bit of a more serious day here on 5/13. After touring the rooftop farm of Dakakkar and getting to see how Rotterdam has brough agriculture into its city center (which once again combats urban sprawl and adds greenery to the city improving resident mental health and making progress on UN SDG goal…
Day 11: Not enough olive branches seen
We have made it to the final day of the trip and my final blog. On this final day we stopped in the political district of the Netherlands, The Hague. Unlike America where the capital is also where all the politicians are, the Netherlands separates the two in order to keep influence balanced…
Day 10: Roof Salad
Day 10 was a secondary day to our delta works visit on day 9 and a visit to the dakahker rooftop farm in the city of Rotterdam. The rooftop farm utilized many tactics to make it an extremely sustainable building and a blueprint for future similar projects. To make the farm…
Day 9: Exploring the Delta Works
Today we headed over to the Delta Works. The Delta Works is a massive system of dams, sluices, locks, dikes, and storm-surge barriers. It was built after a terrible flood killed 1800 people in 1953. This project is a crazy engineering feat. They built factories just to make this and specially designed boats to help…
Day 9: Change in works (Delta works)
Day 9 was our big visit to the delta works and honestly I had a great time. In 1953 in the southern part of the Netherlands there was a huge flood that broke their dikes at the time and killed over 1800 people. After that the country decided to make the delta plan…
Day 8: When cows… float?
Day 8 was composed of some of my favorite site visits, I think everytime I think a site visit is my favorite they just keep getting better. We started out at a floating farm that had some cows and a farm underneath it. The whole farm is supported on a big piece…
Day 7: Churches everywhere!
Day 7 was the big day for history. We essentially spent the whole day in Munster. The town of Munster is one of the older towns in Germany so we got to enjoy a little bit of old story. One of the churches we saw stood out to me in particular because of…
Day 8: Floating Innovations
Today we visited a floating farm. This floating farm had everything it needed, even though it is located on the water. The top floor was where the cows lived and where an automatic cow milker was located. Underneath that was where they made dairy products and the food for the cows. The food for the…
Day 6: Run Forest Run!
Day 6 was one of the most free days of the trip. For the day we got I trip of Enschede which was a little bit of a cultural shock to say the least. The guide started by explaining to us how the city is on one of the biggest hills in the…
Day 5: Grids and Bids
Today was my personal favorite day of the trip. We started with a short introduction to windmills which explained to us some of the math and the workings of a common windmill. Afterwards we then went to a huge windmill farm and got a really in depth tour of…
Day 4: Engineering and Environment at Twente
Day 4 was our main day of transportation to the university of Twente. We took a bus over to the town of Enschede. Upon arrival we were given a tour of the campus and shown some of the sustainable aspects of the campus. For instance, one of the buildings has a glass…
Day 12: A Rainy Day in Rotterdam
Today began with a nice, laid back tour of various sustainble architecture throughout Dakakker, Rotterdam. Our guide showed us a lot of beatiful buildings across the neighborhood, many of which are pictured below, that were all used for various methods of water management. The buildings with the curved windows are actually the edge of a…
Day 7: German History
Today we took a trip to Münster, Germany. Here, we took a tour of the city and learned about its rich, deep history. On our tour, we talked about how the church there would have cages where people would be hung in them if they spoke out against the religion. It was crazy to think…