Today was our 12th and final day of the trip. We took a long train ride to the Floating Farm in Scheidam, which houses 26 cows in a 25×25 meter perimeter, floating atop the port. We first were given a presentation about the current climate crisis, and how the floating farm addresses some of these…
Tag: Summer 2025
Ranch & Research
5/22/25 Today, we had the opportunity to tour the floating farm which (as one may guess) is a farm that is floating on the water. As with any farm, the floating farm had to consider a path to make themselves a sustainable place. One stride they make towards sustainability is utilizing food that would otherwise…
See you next time Netherlands! Day 12 in Rotterdam
Today we had our last day in Rotterdam, and more importantly The Netherlands, before leaving tomorrow morning. We started out by visiting a floating farm that was founded in order to find a better solution to feeding the community while combatting climate change. Extreme temperatures and rain events are becoming more common, which makes farming…
Last Day
Today started out like every other day, we woke up and got breakfast before heading out for either a presentation or a tour. Today was not as busy as some of our other days but it was still exciting because it was our last day. We had two presentations in the morning about how to…
Bilbao (sort of) – Day 7
Today was so far my favorite day of the trip. We started off by going to the local flea market and shopping around for a bit. After which, we got some breakfast before we took a quick bus ride to San Sebastián. Here we took a walking tour around the beach and then were set…
Adiós to Abroad: My Last Day in Spain
This morning, I had the hotel breakfast again, and I ate some watermelon and lemon cake. We then got on a bus and went to the Bilbao School of Engineering. We listened to presentations about the design process of the balance machine, and then we listened to a presentation about a design for a ventilator…
Final day in the Basque Country!
It is sad to say this is the last blog we will write on the most amazing trip. We started off with breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the Basque School of Engineering. We heard wonderful presentations that dove deep in to the design process that both engineers and nurses use. It talked…
Bilbao – Day 6
Today was a much simpler and easy day after the previous busy day. Today we got to sleep in and then went to the Bilbao theater. We took a tour of the theater and all the historical aspects it involved. They had tons of costumes from previous plays including the most interesting to me, which…
05/22 – Floating Farm & RDM Rotterdam
Today was a really nice way to wrap up our trip–we toured the Floating Farm, which was the company I presented on during our pre-departure meetings, so I was excited to see it in person, and we also toured RDM Rotterdam. These visits were both very informational and inspiring to see the plethora of ways…
Day 12: Sea the Future of Farming
Our final day started with an exciting visit to the Floating Farm. We first started with a quick presentation that went over the Floating Farms entire premise and promoted its sustainable efforets. Our presentator explained that the Floating Farm is a small farm that is in the water supported by a platform that moves with…
One Last Day (Day 12)
All good things must come to an end, and this stood true on Day 12–our last day in the Netherlands before departing back to Pittsburgh. Today was a day filled with lessons on sustainability, but also a bittersweet goodbye to this experience that I have cherished. In the morning, we visited the Rotterdam Floating Farm,…
Being a Tourist in London – Day 13
Day 13 was probably the most fun day yet. We had a long day in London alone which was so nice as we had freedom to do as much as we possibly could. We started at the Florence Nightingale museum where we got to learn more about her life and the healthcare system during the…
How to Love Birmingham in 10 Days – Day 10
Today marked one of the most insightful experiences of our time in Birmingham as we visited the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. From start to finish, the day offered an eye-opening look into the world of mental health care in the United Kingdom. It was a reminder of how much there is…
Floating Farms and Innovative Designs (5/22)
We solemnly started our last day, waking up early and prepared for a lot of morning tours. Our first destination for the day was the Floating Farm, an innovative dairy farm design aimed at transitioning to a greener alternative for dairy farming through the reduction of many high-carbon emitting processes. One of the ways the…
Last Day!
Today we woke up and left for the Florence Nightingale museum. We walked around at our own pace and saw the woman we learned so much about in Intro to Professional Nursing. I liked how interactive it was; it had many toys, stories that spoke to you, and hidden peepholes. Florence was a significant influence…
Day 11: From Rain to Rooftops
Day 11 brought us a cloudy day and even better a nice laid back day with some amazing experts that gave us tours and a lot of sustainability knowledge. After a quick breakfast, we started with a walking tour focused on sustainable architecture and water management in Rotterdam. Our guide, Rob, showed us how the…
Day 10: Dam, thats Impressive!
Today’s visit to the Delta Works was by far one of the coolest experiences of the trip from an engineering perspective. We began at the visitors center, where we watched a short film that gave us an overview of how and why the Delta Works came to be. The system was built in response to…
Day 10 in Bilbao
Today was packed with nature and adventure. We began with a downhill hike to San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, followed by a climb up a long, winding staircase. The views from the top were absolutely breathtaking, ocean on one side, cliffs on the other. After our visit, we made the uphill hike back. It started to…
Day 9 in Bilbao
Today, we had to move out of our hotel in Bilbao due to the massive influx of visitors for the Europa League Final, mostly British tourists! After packing up, we enjoyed a scenic bus ride through the mountains to a company called Tekniker. It is located on a hillside and surrounded by green mountains, the…
Day 8 in Bilbao
We started our day with a visit to the bioengineering labs at the Bilbao School of Engineering. We had the chance to see several of their current projects up close and ask questions about their design processes, missions, and development timelines. It was fascinating to learn how intricate this work is. It involves not only…