Today we visited the Floating Farm which is the first ever one of its kind. They produce milk and cheese from their cows and fresh produce that are all above water. The structure is held in stable on the water by two drilled spud poles so that the farm can still move up and down…

Today we visited InHolland School of Applied Sciences Rotterdam campus which focuses on business and prelaw studies. We started our morning by going on a tour of Rotterdam to see the several new buildings and examine the architecture. During World War II, 85% of Rotterdam was bombed so almost all of the buildings in Rotterdam…

Today we visited Delta Works, a museum detailing the construction of the Delta dams surrounding the country of the Netherlands. We first watched an educational video that described the process and materials to build the Oosterscheldekering, which was the specific storm surge barrier we got to explore today. After the great floods that hit the…

Today we visited InHolland University at their Delft campus that focuses on aeronautical engineering. We were given a lecture explaining the goals and initiatives of the school. I was very impressed by their emphasis on learning by doing, which was eminent in their yearly projects where students were able to physically build and showcase a…

Today we visited the Watersnoodmuseum which is a museum dedicated to sharing the story of the flood of 1953 and how it effected peoples lives. The museum itself is inside the caissons in Ouwerkerk – Zeeland blocking the North Sea. We started by reading about how the storm increased the water levels and broke through…

Today we went to the Zuiderzee museum in Enkhuizen, Netherlands. We took a ferry across the bay to where the outdoor museum was, which shared the history, current affairs and future of the IJsselmeer area. IJsselmeer is what they called the inland lake that was removed from the Wadden Sea when the Zuiderzee was closed….

Today we visited Zaanse Schans, a vibrant wind mill farm that had several small shops lining the gravel paths. We were able to explore for thirty minutes before our visit at Henri Willig, a cheese factory, so we visited a clog shop where they display the tools needed to make clogs. We saw clogs of…

Today we went to the Our Lord in the Attic Museum which was made by a wealthy Catholic German, Jan Hartman, for other Catholics to practice their faith during a time of religion prosecution. In the sixteen hundreds, the Dutch fell under protestant rule where they where protestantism became the primary religion, and those who…

Today we visited Nouryon, a chemical producing company located in Deventer, Netherlands. A Pitt alumni, Christine, explained to us how Nouryon sells the chemical ingredients used to make products, so they act as the building blocks to a product. These chemicals are primarily sold to other practices that produce a service such as a mining…

Today we had an early awakening and met outside for the bus at 6 am in order to reach Royal FloraHolland at peak flower auctioning time. We took the bus and traveled into North Holland, where we saw the Netherlands urban setting for the first time. It reminded me a lot of driving across Pennsylvania,…

We started the day off by taking a cruise tour along Amsterdam’s various canals, enriching ourselves on the geography and history of the city. From the boat, we were able to clearly see the architecture of each building that we had walked past yesterday, which gave me a completely new perspective of the sizes and…

After a 17 hour travel day full of online poker and less than one hour of sleep, we landed in the Netherlands at around 6 am to a beautiful sunny day. We met our amazing tour guide, Raha, who welcomed us and gave us some introductory information about our day. As we were leaving the…

About Me Hello! My name is Luiza Weissmann and I am a first-year bioengineering student in the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. I am also a student in the Fredericks Honors College, and am on the pre-medical track and hope to be a pediatrician one day! I am from a town…