It is every mechanical engineer’s dream…. we went to the Rotterdam sea wall! The sea barrier shows mechanical engineering at its finest using the largest ball joint in the world. In fact, the ball joint is made of the same material as artificial hips. We were supposed to bike for an hour and a half to the sea wall but ended up taking a bus because it was supposed to rain and 75% of the students in my class were sick. I was definitely one of them, very great full that I was in a dry bus.

The sea wall was created to dam the port of Rotterdam….hence the name Rotter-dam (River-dam). The entire structure is made of steel and fills with water till it sinks to the concrete barrier at the bottom. This design was chosen out of 6 main designs by the city government. Designs were chosen by practicality, cost, maintenance, and longevity.

What I did not realize was how large these gates really are. Each gate is the same size of the Eiffel tower. So it takes two Eiffel towers to close of the port. When the port is closed it is estimated that 10 million euros is lost in business at the port.

 

After visiting the sea wall we had a guest lecture from Erik Donkers. Erik Donkers is the director of VIA and gave us an informative talk on a tour of VIA statistics. VIA created and partially runs a project called Smart Traffic Accident Reporting (STAR). This program was made in response to 3500 people killed in road accidents in the 1970s. The minister of transport’s own son was killed in one of this accidents and decided it was time for change. A new road safety policy was created: police started reporting all accidents. However, as police got busy they stopped reporting their accidents and VIA needed a new way of tracking this data. The 3 step policy of accident being helped by police, report being done by insurance, and analyses being conducted by VIA was put into place. The results were positive, VIA immediately had better insight on the situation.

Sunday June 26 2016

-Today was a day off, nothing planned, a day to just breathe. I started the day by working on assignments and catching up on my blog, I was up early enough to have the lounge to myself and some peace and quiet. You learn how to love being by yourself and the silence when you live with 14 other people. Throughout the day I got groceries, did some food prep, and explored what Delft had to show me. The more I explore Delft the more I fall in love with it. The beautiful landscapes, the small shops and bakeries, and of course the people.

 

Monday June 27 2016

Ypenburg and Automated Enforcement

Today we focused on a small community in Den Haag called Ypenburg. Ypenburg is another growth city similar to Houten that was created due to the growth of Den Haag. Most residents of this growth city commute to Den Haag for work still by the use of public transportation. It was interesting to see that Ypenburg was made safer by less street connectivity. Having road blockages stops all through traffic and helps with traffic control. The sidewalks also have sharp edges which slows down turning traffic. Ypenburg is aesthetically pleasing due to the art sculptures in public space and the large amounts of flowers and greenery throughout the residential areas. Residents of Ypenburg take pride in the way the outside of their house looks for sure!

Dr. Lovegrove introduced a interactive valuation tool to promote sustainable/healthy development called I-THRIVE. This tool is a point system in Canada that can be used to make the ‘healthiest’ city in the development process. I-THRIVE gives metrics and guidelines to what it believes makes a healthy community. By filling out the questionnaire on the summary page you can receive a score from the program and compare to the ideal healthy community.

I did an I-THRIVE evaluation for the community of Ypenburg to find out if it really was a healthy community.

According to my results:

Ypenburg scored a 73/100, compared to when I did it again with Kelowna and got a 33/100. According to I-THRIVE Ypengburg is definitely a healthy community.

 

Philip Wijers then gave a guest lecture on automated enforcement. Not only did he create speed cameras but also red light, average speed, and environmental standard sensors. Currently in Amsterdam there are radars that can detect the make of your vehicle and fine you on whether or not it passes the emissions standards of the city. This became a problem for classic car collectors due to the fact that older cars do not have catalytic converters. Having automated enforcement ensures that there is 24/7/365 watch on all cars and drivers. There is less need to schedule police officers at all shifts. Automated enforcement would be genius in developing countries due to the fact that it eliminates the chance of bribery between the driver and the police officer. Automated enforcement gets rid of the weakest link: humans. I was astounded that speed cameras are estimated to save 390-750 deaths per year in Britian. So yes, speed cameras are annoying… but they save so many lives!

 

Amsterdam with the Engr 449 Fam!

Happy Saturday! Today is a non-school, field trip type day. We left for Amsterdam by train at 8 in the morning. Instead of our usual group of 15 we had 9, the flu seemed to catch a few people.

We started with the Rijksmuseum which was paid for by UBC. The Rijksmuseum is massive and world famous for its Van Gogh’s, Vermeer’s, and many more. It took my group two hours to get through the museum at a pretty fast pace so I can not imagine how long it would take a passionate art collector.

I enjoyed my visit at the museum and am glad I did it but I am not sure I would pay 17 euros to do it again.

Our group met up at 1 pm and grabbed lunch at the grocery store: Albert Heins. We continued to different events. Jenny, Matt, Noah, Grace, and myself went to the Heineken Experience. Helena, Nik, John, Ellen, Dr. Lovegrove, and Karen went to go see a sustainable community exhibition in the North Amsterdam.

The Heineken Experience was so much more than any of us expected! The entire tour took us 2 hours and we got to learn the history of Heineken, watch the making process, sample beer through the stages of being made, be turned into a beer in a ride, and play fun games while drinking more Heineken!

Even though it is kind of a tourist event I would recommend it to everyone, Heineken does a very good job in keeping everyone entertained throughout the tour. It is interactive through out the whole experience and the best part…. lots of beer!

 

We met the rest of the group for drinks and dinner at 7:45 pm.

 

After dinner a couple of us went for some drinks at a community called De Cuevel. This community was created on polluted ground. Since the ground was so polluted from the ship yard that used to be there, no one can build or use the soil. Therefore, they stuck old houseboats on top of the soil and planted tons of plants to soak up the pollutants. They definitely had fun making this, there was party lights, board walks, rope swings, everything your inner hippie could ever need.

After an hour train ride we were home by 1:30 am. Thank goodness there is nothing planned for tomorrow. I am ready for a rest day!

 

HTM tour and Lecture!

Today we had warm weather! It was only 20 degrees out but very humid. As soon as you walk outside your skin feels wet, almost like Mexico.

Most of our group was able to get up for our 8 am tram/train tour, the others were still feeling the effect of student night…

Our tour started on a tram from Delft, it is the same system as the train system where you tap your OV chip card on and off. The system is genius in that you can go anywhere in the Netherlands using the same card. These cards are refillable and save so much time in buying tickets. Just don’t forget to tap out! If you don’t tap out then you get charged a fine on your card.

We went through many cities that are know as ‘growth cities’. In our lecture we learned that these cities started when people wanted more space. The Hague no longer had any room for expansion within the city limits so small growth cities started outside the Hague. This created a problem in that people needed to commute to the Hague for work still. Therefore in the 1990s HTM set up public transportation in the cities before the became super populated. At first I thought this was a silly move economically in that they do not know how many people would actually be moving to these cities. Could it even pay the buses/ trams off? But how Marc Drost from HTM explained it is that people are creatures of habit; if they start using public transportation as soon as they move there, they will always use public transport. It makes total sense.

In the 2000s there was a national policy is that they wanted to compact the cities instead of expanding into rural areas. To do this they needed to create growth boundary and build upwards instead. I see this problem with Kelowna; the people to land ratio is too small to fully support a good public transport system. If the city created a growth boundary and made the city more dense with people a public transport system such as a tram could be economically viable.

Our second lecture was from Rien VanLeeuwen on the data driven applications at HTM. The creation of these OV chipcards has given the company access to incredible amounts of accurate information. They are able to get info by the stats of the cards and make changes to the programs using this info. HTM did have some problems with people/government worrying about security and privacy while using these cards so Rien must delete all card info after 18 months after the travel. Other data sources include AVL, market research, and external sources.

 

Long story short: the Netherlands has a highly advanced and organized public transit system. Using all the info we learned from HTM today we can attempt to implement and adapt Kelowna’s public transit network to make it better and used more. We can learn from the mistakes and achievements that HTM has made and create advanced public transport system for the Okanagan region.

 

Today was a catch up day.

Gord moved our lecture to 10 am so I had the morning to go for a walk and check out the delft market. The delft market is every Thursday morning and it has everything from fruit, veggies, meat, bread, candy, and clothes! The prices are much cheaper than the local grocery stores so I got all my groceries for the week.

Our 10 am lecture was on the introduction to decision theory, social cost benefit analysis and multiple account evaluations. The lecturer was our own Dr. Gord Lovegrove which was a nice break from all the guest lectures we have been having.

The lecture was basically a review of the engineering design class I took last semester in terms of the cost benefit charts. Dr. Lovegrove did however relate it to our Rutland project due at the end of next week.

We had from 1-4 to catch up on any assignments and work on our projects. The Rutland design project is actually a huge assignment to finish in a week! Jenny, Anna, and I worked on it for three hours today and still are only a quarter way through. The problem is trying to find time to work on this project. Dr. Lovegrove is great a keeping us busy and tiring us out!

After the break we had a guest lecture from Dr. Angeles Mendoza Sammet. She is a lecturer in environmental planning and management. She went through the aspects you must consider when working on a project. It definitely related to the decision making lecture we had earlier. Some things I found interesting is that even if she does an impact assessment and does not approve the project it can still happen. The government is good at getting around these assessments some times. However, after an impact assessment the citizens affected by the project can sue the government.

In the Netherlands however, whenever a project is introduced the government involves the people as much as possible. This slows down the decision making process but in the end the people are happier with the decision.

It is interesting to compare the decision making processes of the Netherlands compared to North America and hopefully I can use one of the methods in the Rutland group project due at the end of next week.

Railways and Houten!

Today we were back at TU at 9 am for a lecture. We switched from the topic of bikes to railways. I learned many interesting things that I did not know before such as how efficient trains really are and the amazing train system that Europe has. We had the chance to tour the rail transportation lab at TU Delft which really sparked the mechanical engineer in me! We had the chance to ask the researchers questions and take pictures of some of the experiments.

 

The science of electricmotor trains is there but North America is not ready due to the high initial costs.

We met at the Delft train station at 1 and continued on our adventure to Houten. Houten is a small town in the Utretch district. It was beautiful! Almost all the streets had no cars, so peaceful!

Please see attached link for assignment 3.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Yojq7mgUNZcHlVS2V1OHYwOTA/view?pref=2&pli=1

 

I didn’t know my socks could be so wet!

Today we trained to Rotterdam to get lectured by the Hogue School of Applied Science. We had 3 lectures: a brief history of Rotterdam, Welcome to Rotterdam (architecture). After lunch we had a walking tour of Rotterdam. It POURED for 4 hours. Everything that I have is wet. We did learn a lot of interesting things and get to go on a bike tour however!

Amusement Parks and Potlucks!

We had Sunday off of classes and field trips so we decided to go to an Amusement Park. The best one we could find was 3 hours away….. The things we do for amusement parks.

After 4 trains and a bus we got to Walibi! It was definitely worth it, no lines, crazy fast rollercoasters, and warm weather.

The park had 6 large roller coasters and we did them all. I was worried that the park would be more kid oriented but I did not see a kid the whole time! Dubstep was playing the whole time and only teenagers and adults were there.

Our train ended up being delayed and we ran as fast as possible to make it to the potluck on time. The potluck was at Professer Lovegroves air B&B and we ended up only being half an hour late. Food, good people, and Europe…. what more can you ask for!

 

1. Reading 1: Boston Sunday Globe

The Boston Sunday Globe article is a bit abstract for a mechanical engineer. Traffic is not exactly in my field of study but I believe I can still learn from it and use it in my career. I would like to see the double decker roundabouts, it is hard to picture it through the wording how there are cars rotating on the top coming from four directions and bikes underneath. I am excited to see/ use the double decker roundabouts, it seems like it would be chaotic so how does it work? I also have a hard time realizing that the chance of being killed on a bike in the Netherlands is the lowest in the world. Being in Amsterdam for a week, I noticed how many people ride bikes and the ‘organized chaos’ that is created. I feel like I am more of a threat to the bikers as a pedestrian, when I try to run between them and then the cars afterwards. In this article I was very impressed that Dutch children learn bicycle education in school. This is evident in my week of Amsterdam, there were many kids, some as young as 6 or 7 who could ride through the streets properly and with no fear. When in Amsterdam I was astounded at first that none of the adults, let alone the kids were wearing helmets, but after watching them I realized that they are not as careless on a bike as North Americans, they know exactly what they are doing. The school education has obviously made an impact and therefore wearing a helmet is not as big of a safety concern as North America. I am interested to see if helmets is a controversial subject in the Netherlands, would less people ride their bikes if it was mandatory to wear helmets?

2. Reading 2: Consumers Are ‘Driving Light,’ By Choice and By Accident

I was surprised to read that Americans are driving less than they used to. If I did not read this article I would guess that Americans are driving more because people’s lives are becoming much busier than they used to be. However, the idea that people are driving light ‘by accident’ makes sense due to natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, ect. The fact that the city of Boston has created more public transportation options supports the fact that Americans would be driving less by choice. Personally, my family would have a very difficult time only having one car due to the fact that all four of us have overlapping busy schedules. I also do not live in an area where public transport is an option. If public transport was available near our acreage I can see the use of less cars/household an option. However after biking more in the Netherlands and becoming more comfortable I can see myself biking longer distance for commuting instead of just leisure. I could bike to my work in half an hour. However, one of the main differences between biking in the Netherlands and in North America is the terrain; there are many more hills in North America. I would definitely get my exercise and work up a sweat if I biked to work.

3. 3. Reading 3: Bridging the Gaps

   It makes sense that creating higher standard bike lanes in the city of Portland will increase the use of bicycles. Personally when I see a city with a well maintained bike lanes or cycle paths it makes me want to bike instead of drive. It is a great idea to track bicycle use and get data for making future decisions. I am surprised that Portland is one of the only cities to be doing this, it just makes common sense for developing future transportation methods. Netherlands must have some sort of tracking method due to the fact that such a large portion of the population commutes by bike. The ‘before’ pictures in this article are shocking in that all the bike routes look very dangerous; crossing over traffic ect. If I lived in Portland at the time I would not bike at all, the risk is too high. I would always focus on the weakest link of my trip before I left and then would not have enough safety assurance to go. However after the changes bicycle usage went up by 20%! This article was mainly on the changes that the city made to bridges to make them better for bikers. It is impressive how just improving the facilities of the bridges increased the bike use by such a large quantity. I believe that if Kelowna just started by creating a cycle path along the 97 and 33 highways that we could increase bike usage by at least 10%. The scariest part of Kelowna is the fact that bike lanes will randomly just end and that the paths are not wide enough to leave a buffer zone between cars.

 

4. Reading 4: Bogota’s Urban Happiness Movement

Car free day! It sounds like the Hague, I am excited for our day trips to the Hague to learn about how it affected everyone. Before leaving for Europe I researched the places that we were going to be visiting and what we would be learning about. Mr. Peñalosa is extremely courageous to be the one to start this movement. I can see how there would be a lot of political back lash and it would affect his popularity. It makes me wonder how all Kelowna needs is one courageous person to make a stand and bring in a sustainable movement.

Happy Saturday! Today we went to the Royal Blue Delft Pottery Factory for a tour and workshop. We learned about the history behind Royal Blue Delft pottery and got to view the process behind making it.

The second part of our trip we were able to paint our own tile like the blue pottery. The paint actually starts out black/grey and turns to blue after the kiln. You can create different shades by mixing the paint paste with different amounts of water. I will post the finished tile when I pick it up on Monday!

After the workshop we rode our bikes to a working windmill. We were able to tour the entire windmill and learn how it works by a representative of the windmill.

 

After lunch at the restaurant beside the windmill we biked back the hostel in the rain. When I say rain I mean it POURED. I have never biked so hard in my life…. I think I burned off my whole lunch!

Turbo Roundabouts and Sleep!

Last night was student night and the clubs in Delft so lets just say everyone had a pretty tough time getting out of bed this morning.

At 9 am we had a lecture from Bertus Fortuijn on Turbo Roundabouts. You do not see many turbo roundabouts in Canada but Europe is full of them! Turbo roundabouts are a great solution for intersections of traffic because they are safer and can take a high volume of vehicles. Bertus had to consider 3 main things when designing his roundabout: the roadway width, the aprons in the center and armpits, and the semi-paved shoulders need to have enough bearing power.

We biked to a nearby turbo roundabout in the Emerald community. Watching the traffic go through this ingenious creation was like a symphony; there was cars moving in patterns in all directions.

One of the reasons Turbo Roundabouts are so successful is because they us a combination of signposting and pavement marking to let drivers know what to do.

One big difference from Canadian traffic circles is that we don’t do the raised curb in between two lanes of traffic. It is only 7 cm high but it makes such a difference! You would feel that in your car if you went over it and know that you are not in the right spot!

A day in the Hague!

This morning I walked out of the hostel and was astounded by a huge market that was set up in the town square. It seemed to have popped out of no where. It was 8 am yet the market was still booming with people. I attempted to walk around quickly before meeting with the rest of my group. They had stands with fruit, vegtables, lots of cheese, herring(traditional Dutch cuisine), candy, and many more. The prices are slightly cheaper than the supermarkets here in Delft. I know where I am going grocery shopping tonight!

As a group we biked to the Hague. It was only a 40 minute bike ride and it had beautiful scenery. I will never get over this picture-esk scenery. We went over a bridge that is engineered to turn when large boats need to pass through the canal. It was definitely a piece of art to an engineer like me! Even the texture of the road was made in a way so that slipping on your bike would be nearly impossible.

Upon arrival to the Hague it felt like we were in a whole new country. The city is quite modern and full of amazing architecture. It is a busier city than Delft and has many more cyclists and cars. We were only a short distance from Delft but the scenery was completely different. One of the most amazing things that I noticed is that there is NO STOPLIGHTS! It was very impressive to have such a large city and get away with not having any.

We met with some representatives at the city hall of the Hague. This building is very spacious and beautiful, you can see right through the hallways to the other side of the building.

We were treated like royalty by Frank Botma and his collegues. We were given muffins, coffee, tea and water. Frank gave us a lecture on the Hague policy on traffic and transport. The lecture was full of before and after slides of how the changed the city from the car-filled 60s/70s to the mainly pedestrian and bike today. The whole revival of the sustainable town started due to the protests of parents against car use. In the 70s there was a strong increase in the amount of traffic deaths and injurys and the city also had to cope with the expected growth to 20 million people.

The Hague first started by making car free Sundays, and what they noticed is people loved them! The citizens of the Hague were much happier when the city was car free. The mobility alan was created in 2011, they planned on increasing public transport and designing an infrastructure that would add quality to the city. Man did they do a great job! Today only 20% of people drive to city center. Can you imagine that in Kelowna? What a change it would make?

I included many pictures of what the Hague looks like today. Busy car-polluted areas were turned into parks, car parking lots were turned into free bicycle parking areas, they put up signs to show the pollution cars are causing in the streets. They even attemped to get rid of through traffic. So cars were not completely excluded from their plans, just through traffic which do not bring any benefit to the city.

 

The Hague is the city that contains the Holland Parliament. On our way through we passed the Prime Minister! That would never happen in Canada! He did not have any security or anything.

These ads are put on bikes to let them know where the free bike parking is.

Can you hear the bells?

I woke up this morning to the wonderful sounds of the church bells. Not only did I hear the bells of the Old Church(800 years old) but also the bells of the New Church (400 years old).It is a lovely melody that these bells play…..except it was 4 in the morning. These bells go off every hour at least, I am hoping that I soon will be so used to them that I do not even notice them. Maybe I will even miss the sound of the bells when I get home!

 

Our lectures today were on the principles of bicycle planning and design. We studied bike lanes and cycle tracks and the pros and cons to either design.

 

As part of our lecture we left the classroom to go measure and observe both bike lanes and cycle tracks.

I believe the cycle track design is safer and more efficient after this lecture. There is a risk of car doors opening and injuring the biker with a bike lane. Therefore if one was to put in a bike lane they must leave a buffer zone.

We also looked at criteria such as the size of the curb, color/texture of the road, barriers, skill, direction, speed, and volume.

Overall it was a good day, I know I am going to sleep really well tonight. Very excited for our day trip to the Hague tomorrow!

Day 2 of Delft was amazing! We started by biking to the University for our lecture at 9 am. The exercise in the morning is energizing, better than coffee! I enjoyed it so much it makes me want to bike to University in Kelowna everyday.

 

We were given an assignment to compare two Delft neighborhoods. My group chose Oost Tanthof which was developed in the 1980’s and the community of De Emerald which as developed in the 1990’s.

On the way to De Emerald it POURED. It was definitely an experience to say the least! I have never biked in the rain. There was surprisingly not Dutch out biking during the rain, they are more pro-active in checking the Doppler weather and waiting until the rain passes.

 

The Emerald shopping center was 6 stories high, this is abnormal compared to the rest of Delft that I have seen. Usually the buildings in Delft are only about 2-3 stories high. The building was in a residential area so cars had to winde through many roads to get to it. It would be easy however for the homeowners nearby to walk to the shopping center. The shopping center was made to encourage walking to the center instead of driving. This is definitely the opposite of North American shopping centers.The Shopping center consisted of stores on the bottom floor/zero floor and apartments on the upper floors. The Dutch compact their towns into small spaces due to the need for biking and walking. When designing the road system they needed to make sure everything was in walking distance. The use of living space above the stores proves the compactness of the town. The area mostly had apartment complexes but there was some duplexes and row houses in the area. Most row houses had small private yards that were overflowing with greenery and flowers.

When we entered the Emerald I noticed that the layout was long and linear. This is unlike Canadian shopping centers which usually are in a large square. Having this long linear line made it easy to find all the stores and not miss anything. This is also similar to the geosciences building we are in at TU Delft, it feels like the hallways go on forever, it is long and straight.

There was 3 supermarket choices and many specialized shops. It seemed strange to me that the specialized bread and organic stores could compete with the large supemarkets like AH. The Dutch obviously still like the taste and quality of the products from these specialized stores.

Another difference from Canada was that the eggs came in backs of 6 and 10. It is only possible to buy in packs of 6 and 12/ dozen and half-dozen in Canada.

There was an equal amount of car parking to bike parking. The bike parking was much closer to the door and obviously took up a lot less room. It makes me wonder if the designers of the building wanted to encourage bike transport by letting them park closer than the cars. Even though there was car parking available it was not near enough parking compared to what Canadians would need. Due to the larger quantity of bikers in Delft there does not need to be as much parking available.

We did not see any other form of public transport in the direct area however there was buses on the main street about 5 km away.

 

The streets were quite wide compared to the rest of Delft however the speed limit was low due to the amount of residential homes in the area. There was a lot of curvy streets with speed bumps which also slowed down the drivers. In terms of the overhead view of blocking, there was some large blocks similar to residential areas in Canada.

After we left the Emerald we proceeded to Oost Tanthof and the SUN CAME OUT!!

Upon arrival it was obvious that the community was older than the Emerald. Things were a bit more worn and weathered. One obvious difference that we concluded was the buildings were much shorter than the ones near the Emerald. The average building height was only 1-2 stories high. Similarly, it had its stores on the bottom and homes on the second floor. There was no apartment buildings in the area, only detached homes and duplexes. It is evident that the large buildings and the apartments were not implemented until the 90s. These homes did not have much outdoor space in front of their house, they were almost directly beside the side walk.

The roads were fairly straight and slim however the houses were not in block format. It was not as easy as following the main road to the shopping center, we had to follow many small residential roads and turn often to find it. I believe that many North Americans would have a harder time finding this shopping center due to the fact we are used to having them in commercial areas beside main roads. The few cars we did see were able to drive fast, there was not any speed humps/bumps to slow them down.

The shopping center consisted of a main supermarket(Jumbo) and many specialized stores. These specialized stores included the meat market, flower boutique, and bakery. Again I was surprised that the specialty stores were able to compete with the supermarket right beside.

There was less car parking available compared to the Emerald. There was only about 10 spots for cars but over 50 parking spots for bikes. You can tell that biking is definitely encouraged and used more often than cars.

The area also had a school and a park. The whole community was very family-oriented.

The community was packed with easily accessible bike lanes, however we did not see any other forms of public transportation. On the way we did pass by the tram so it is a possibility that residents bike/walk to the tram and take the tram to get to work.

Even though the two communities were only 10 years of age in difference there is a vast quantity of differences. You can tell that the planners wanted to encourage public transport and biking more in the 90s but accepted the fact that many people will also drive. The developers of the Emerald also focused on keeping the community compact by building up instead of outwards. This is evident in the amount of apartment complexes in the area. I believe the Dutch area possible moving towards a North American approach of blocking the communities. They went from no/little blocking of Oost Tanthof to partial blocking of the Emerald. The blocking makes it easier for not only cars but also bikers to easily access all parts of the community.

 

 

 

Bikes, Cheese, Ikea!

Our group walked from the hostel to the Technical University of Delft at 9 am. The University was surprisingly close to the hostel, only a 10 minute bike ride. After touring around the beautiful campus and finding our lecture rooms we were given our bikes.

The bikes were in great condition, they had locks, headlights, and bags to carry our books. I was fortunate enough to get a bike with gears and handle brakes…. those with back-pedal breaks were struggling. I already had the hang of riding a bike around in Holland due to the fact I rented a bike in Amsterdam this past week(hectic to say the least). Travelling in such a large group was a bit of a struggle at the start because a lot of the students in my group  were unsure of when they had the right away or just were not quite comfy yet on their bikes. After 3 weeks in Delft we will all be experts though.

We stopped at the old church for a lunch break. My close friends knew there was cheese samples at the cheese shop across the way. There is no words to describe this cheese!!! The Dutch definitely do it best! Who needs to eat lunch when you can just sample 10 types of Gouda, right?

We continued on our bikes to Ikea. By this time you can tell that everyone is a lot more comfortable on their bikes. We travelled quite a ways to the outside of the city. We learned that the reason these big box stores are on the outside of the city is so that the trucks can get to them better. The design of Delft is quite genius in the way that travelling on bike within the town is much easier than travelling by automobile. Having a bike-focused city helps the parking situation, the city stays more compact, the reduction of accidents, and people are just more active. The city basically encourages biking in the design of the streets and buildings; a lot of the staircases have ramps to push your bikes up, and the water drains are flat so that bikes can ride over them smoothly.

When walking through Ikea we had the task of trying to get the Delft bikers view. You do not need a car to travel at big box stores like Ikea! Many of the items are made is smaller portions or compact enough that you can take them on a bike. There is even some bikes with boxes in the front to carry larger items. I have even seen the boxes used to drive children around the city, what an invention! Worse comes to worse, if the item is too large to be taken on a bike, the customer can order it to their house. The need to use an automobile has been eliminated by the Dutch! Dear North America…. it is possible!

 

We had free time afterwards to grocery shop, have a few drinks on the patio, and really get to know each other better. 3 weeks just won’t be enough time here!

Olivia, Breanne, and I took a train ride from Amsterdam to Delft. I was first shocked by the price of the train ride, we only paid 14 euro to travel an hour. I was expecting a much steeper price. In Calgary when you ride the C-train a short distance it is 4 dollars so travelling to a different city for 14 euro is incredible!

The entire train ride we had a view of the countryside. We saw tons of greenery, windmills, cattle, and many cute-fairy-tale type houses. Coming from Amsterdam this is not only exciting but a huge relief. I found Amsterdam to definitely be an ‘experience’. The streets are much less crowded here, the prices on items are cheaper, and the town is much less tourist-oriented. Less helter-skelter to say the least.

When getting off the train we grabbed a small map from the tourist info booth. We expected it be similar to Amsterdam in that finding your way takes lots of trial and error. Delft was the opposite…. the signs are direct and the town is small. We found ourselves in the market center, flabbergasted by the picture perfect view we saw. It looked like it came right out of a fairy-tale.

Upon entrance to the hostel I was in shock. Throughout my travels in the past couple years I have stayed in many hostels, never have I seen a hostel so clean, organized, and well set-up. I would classify our living space more like a hotel/resort than a hostel. We gathered with many of our fellow students, they all seemed to have the same adventurous, out-going, spirits like my own. Everyone got along, there was no one who was left out or excluded. We all started on the balcony with our 2 euro bottles of wine and got to know each other.

I am definitely excited to stay here for three weeks! Let the adventures begin….

 

 

 

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