Our final day was spent at The Hague, or Den Haag in Dutch, the seat of the Dutch government. The Hague is home to the Binnenhof, a complex of buildings that serves as the seat of the States General, the Dutch parliament. The Hague is a lot like Washington, D.C. in the United States, even…
Tag: Plus3 The Netherands
Day 11: Rooftop Farms and Flood Museums
Today, the first item on the itinerary was a visit to DakAkker, the rooftop farm. DakAkker is a 1000 m2 rooftop farm on top of the Schieblock in Rotterdam. On the farm are vegetables, flowers, fruit, bees, and chickens. There are several beehives that pollinate the plants on the rooftop as well as the surrounding…
Day 10: Delta Works
Today, after an hour private transfer, we arrived at Delta Works. Here we first took a look around the museum and attended a reenactment of the 1953 flood. We experienced the wind and loud noises that those who were in the flood did. Afterwards there was tea and cinnamon rolls to enjoy and then we…
Day 9: Floating Farms and RDM
Today was our first full day in Rotterdam, and it was packed with sustainability visits. Our first stop, after taking public transportation, was the floating farm. Here, we attended a lecture about their upbringing as well as their goals and ideas for the farm. There are currently 30 cows on the floating farm, but it…
Day 8: Munster
Today we left the University of Twente to spend the day in Münster, Germany. Enno, our Netherlands tour guide, gave us a walking tour of the city. Since it was a Sunday, the city was pretty bare and many of the shops were closed. In Germany, Sundays are peoples quiet and off days. Most shops…
Day 7: Enschede
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 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: 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 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 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 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…
Day 5: Feeling the Breeze
We started our day today with a lecture about wind power, and how wind turbines are designed. We learned the physics behind turbines, and how they are optimized to have the most energy collected while minimizing strain on the blades. This was a very interesting lecture, especially since right afterwards we went to a wind…
Day 8: Flying Cows
Today was our first full day in the city of Rotterdam. After a hearty hotel breakfast, we headed over to the infamous floating farm in the city. Here, the farmhouses are 30 different cows as well as various small crops in a vertical garden on their sublevel, and even a cheese factory within the establishment….
Tiptoeing Through Tulips – Day 3
Today was full of tours and activities that highlighted the sustainability of the Netherlands. First, we went to De Tulperij, which was a beautiful tulip field that uses sustainable practices. While most of the tulips had been cut in order to preserve the nutrients of the bulb, there were still many tulips left for us…
Say Cheese!!
Day 3 brought us the most social day of the trip. We started bright and early at 8 am with a bus ride to the Amsterdam countryside to view the old windmills used to boost the area into an agricultural powerhouse. The windmills were commonly used to make clogs, grind spices, and pump water. Using…