Fashion for Good, Smart Cities, and the Van Gogh Museum!

Hello, this is Lauren Armstrong, and I am the writer for the blog post today! I am so excited to tell you all what we did on our FIFTH day in Amsterdam! We started the day off by heading to the Fashion for Good museum. Our guide showed us around the various floors of the museum, which were designed consecutively to show the past, present and future. To start our tour around the museum on the first floor, our guide showed us a brief timeline of the history surrounding fashion from the late 1700’s to present day. The timeline focused on the ways in which fashion has evolved from necessary clothing, to an expression of oneself, to the overconsumption and fast fashion culture that we face today. (See image below)

The next room on that floor was focused on the manufacturing of clothing today. We got an amazing presentation with visuals and numbered steps to fully reveal the process that showed how clothes are made. The process revealed many discouraging factors, such as the harsh working conditions, as well the overarching idea of sustainable challenges that the textile industry of clothing faces.

The next floor, also known as the present floor, was focused on the present day steps that some companies are taking to be more sustainable. An example of this was a clothing brand that took fast fashion and used clothes from the global “North” and turned it into something expensive and creative, so that the money went to the Ugandan textile industry which recently collapsed due to global “North”. Another company used pre-consumer waste from factory and warehouse floors and turned it into clothing. These companies were not the only companies present in the museum, but these two stuck out to me the most. These innovative ideas and changes that they made are exactly what we need to make a more sustainable environment in the world.

Finally, the last floor was focused on the future. The future solutions that different companies had invented were amazing and beyond creative, ranging from “apple leather” to an Australian developed app that could help someone identify if their clothes were sustainable/not fast fashion. (This app is called “Good On You”)

Next, we ate lunch! My friends and I ate poke bowls in a cool Amsterdam alley. Next, we met Tom Van Maur, an architect based in Amsterdam. He showed us around a few different stops that each showed how Amsterdam is becoming a “Smart City”. Cameras were implemented to scan and identify the amount of people in a certain area, as well as identify faces. There were other innovations, such as a boat called “Roboat” (which was literally a robotic boat). It could serve as a moving bridge or a trash collection vehicle.

Then, we went inside and explored the different ways that a smart city could be created, anywhere, at any time. Then, I went to the Van Gogh Museum with a few friends. I spent time journaling and drawing. I am super excited to get back home and paint a Van Gogh inspired image of Iceland or Amsterdam.

Overall, today was a 10/10. I enjoyed the diverse activities that we did throughout the day. Art, sustainability, and fashion!! Such a cool combo. Signing off, Lauren

Urban Farm and the Anne Frank House

Today we had our first big test on the bikes and went from the hostel on a 45 minute bike ride through the city center and much of the inner city to a city garden. This was a community garden in the middle of many apartment flats and other buildings, built kind of smack dab in the middle. The goal was to induce community by making a space for people to gather and eat, talk, and farm. We talked with Martin, the man who started the project, and he gave us an overview of the goals and ideas of the farm. Next we talked with a professor named David about the commons and social movement. As small groups we worked through some social commons problems. For example my group worked on the problem that many of our lakes are no longer usable, another group looked at common spaces within the school back home. And we proposed a solution that didn't require a governing body, it was a social movement by the people for the people. Our solution for the lakes was to popularize bee lawns and more sustainable, less fertilizer hungry plants in our lawns. Then we had some free time, I took an amazing nap, and gathered as a group for dinner at the hostel. After the meal we headed over to the Anne Frank museum by foot and walked through this amazing display of her experience of the Holocaust. We walked room by room scanning our personal audio tour devices and listened to the presentation. At the end the real diaries were on display. Finally we gathered for a final trek to the hostel for an end of day meeting and some free time, which is when I am writing this. Looking forward to another great day tomorrow! by Bennett V

Biking in Amsterdam

Today was our second full day in Amsterdam, we started with a later breakfast followed by a short break before we headed out to start our day of exploring. We broke into two groups, one group went to pick up bikes for the bike tour of the north side the same side as our hostel. The other group went off on a walking tour of the city to see how transportation works and had evolved in the city. The biking groups first stop was a old ship building facility which has now been turned into a creative space for artists.

We continued our tour of exploring the city and we looked at different kinds of sustainable housing. We firstly looked at city blocks that are built with sustainable in mind. Than we looked at some floating houses that a built with sustainable as a core idea, lastly we looked another project to use land for creative projects. While we were biking we talked about how the North side is where all the new development is going in. We fished up and headed to get some much needed lunch.

The second half of the day we switched groups and the group that started the day with biking went on a walking tour of the city. We walked through central and took a tram to the end of the old city to start our walking tour. We walked around the city as our guild Alex told us about how transportation had evolved in the city. We fished our walking tour at the museum square where there are some of the major museums is Amsterdam.

We fished our day with free time and dinner with the other group. After dinner everyone took the tram back out to do some shopping in the city. For dinner some groups got Korean barbecue while other groups got pizza. We than headed back to the hostel to finish a good day off with a few games of pool.

-Jackson Gammack

First Full Day in Amsterdam

Today was our first full day in Amsterdam! We woke up and ate a delicious breakfast at our hostel. Our day started with a visit to the public works for cycling in Amsterdam. John, an employee at the division, told us about the ways Amsterdam has shifted from a car centric city to a bicycle and public transport centric city. For example, a road out front of the building is currently shut down and js being tested out as a permanent car-free zone so that pedestrians have more space. (See image) We also learned that, unlike the US, there are actually too many bicycles being parked in the city. As a result, the government constructed an underground parking garage for bikes, which we would visit.

After his presentation, John showed us to this garage, and we got some more experience using public transportation in Amsterdam. Their train and tram network are very effective for maneuvering in the city. Quite quickly we made it to our destinations and got to see two underwater bike parking garages. There were sooo many bikes! (See image)

Afterwards, we had a chance to eat lunch and explore some of the city in smaller groups. We ate then met up again and stopped by the award-winning library (see image) in Amsterdam in the way to our next destination, Mediamatic. It's a vegan restaurant/bar/gallery (and more!) that explores plants and their various uses. We learned about how they grow some of their own plants for their dishes and got to taste some of them. They're also working on building a pigeon house out of mycelium, mushroom roots. They allow the roots to grow for a few weeks and then add the new sheets of mycelium to the tower. The roots dry and harden creating a very strong structure. Below is an image of an in-progress pigeon house. (See image)

The rest of our day was free time for us to explore until dinner time. We hung out again at the hostel and will, hopefully, get a nice rest after our first full day in the bustling city of Amsterdam!

— Seth Flikke '24

Hi I'm Shivam and I will be your writer for today's blog. First and foremost was our rushed morning. Quickly we had to pack our suitcases and get ready by 7:10 am after a long roadtrip back to Reykjavik. We truly got to discover to airport since we had time to explore. This is when we realized truly how efficient the airport was compared to the ones in America. On our flight to Amsterdam, we had a smooth ride with great movie choices. In the last 30 minutes of the flight we could observe the city from the crows eye

. With this angle, you could truly observe the dedication the people of Amsterdam have to stopping the crisis of climate change. Specifically, we saw armies of wind turbines in the water which was amazing!

When we arrived we took a ferry to get to our hostel. Shortly after we went on our first adventure/orientation of Amsterdam in which we discovered many stores and cool resturants. However, something interesting we saw was mass pollution of plastic in the rivers flowing through the city which shows that they still have some work to do.

At the end of our adventures, most people decided to relax in the lounge playing ping-pong and cards.

Horseback Riding in Husavik and Our Last Day in Iceland

Hi, I’m Aanya and I will be writing the blog for day 7 in Iceland. Today we drove from Akureyri to Reykjavík, which was approximately 6 hours by bus. Although it was a long journey, we stayed entertained with games, books, tv shows, and obviously, long naps. On the way, we stopped for a horseback riding experience in the same area in which we went whale watching a few days ago. Riding horses was an amazing experience as we were able to ride the horses over hills and along the coast, with a great view of the snow capped mountains of Húsavík. We loved interacting with the friendly animals including a pug, a cat, and a many horses with different personalities.

We then hit the road reached Reykjavík by evening, with a few stops for snacks and the restroom. We had breakfast and lunch on the bus. It was so rainy at one point that we couldn’t see over 15 feet outside the windows. But we made it to the Loft hostel in one piece. Once we arrived at the hostel, we went separate ways for dinner, splitting up into small groups. My group went to a local fish and chips restaurant, an Icelandic specialty. It was a great way to end our incredible stay in Iceland, and we’re all excited to begin the next leg of our journey in Amsterdam tomorrow!

Free-ish Day in Akureyri

Hello everyone! I’m Jahnvi and today I will be writing the blog. Today was designed to be a free day where students can travel at their own pace and visit places in Akureyri with small groups. This allowed us to be independent and grow closer as we found others with similar interests. Ms. Romero gave us a checklist of about 9 places to visit and activities to do. Some examples of places included the art museum, the botanical gardens, the vertical farm, the bakery, etc. Some activities included finding a cat, counting the number of electric vehicles in a four block radius, and meeting a shopkeeper. We found people that were interested in the same activities as us and we set off to explore the town! My group and I first headed to the bakery near our hostel. Our job was to order items that we weren’t familiar with. I happened to meet a very friendly cat there too!

After that, we took a short walk and headed to the vertical farms. We ended up meeting a kind shopkeeper that taught us a lot about the production of sustainably grown vegetables like lettuce, bean sprouts, and cabbage. The shopkeeper told us about the awareness people have in Iceland about climate change. She says that especially in the West, that people aren’t as open minded to making small changes to their lives to improve the climate change situation. For example, the trash cans in America aren’t specific to different types of trash whereas people here are very careful about where they dispose of different materials.

After the vertical farms, my group and I headed to the botanical garden and briefly stopped by a cafe there as well. My group took a short trip to a convenience store to grab a couple of snacks.

We made our way back to the hostel to get lunch and regroup with the teachers and other students. Some groups decided to continue exploring Akureyri while others relaxed in the hostel. My group and I decided to visit one of the art museums. We looked at many different mediums of art and also drew a bit as well. We returned to the hostel to play cards for a bit before heading off to dinner.

After, most of us went out for a quick swim at the community pool. Today was full of adventure, and I really enjoyed getting to know my group better. I can’t wait for more action-packed days like this!

Akureyri University visit and Whale Watching!

Hi I'm Lukas and I'm writing today's blog. Today was our first full day in Akureyri which began with a trip to the bakery. While I was still getting my beauty sleep, many people from our group bought baked goods. Many people said the food was really good. I however, enjoyed breakfast which included cereal, croissants, and some juices. After breakfast, we took a 15 minute hike uphill to see The University of Akureyri inside, we learnt about Icelandic culture, specifically about how it involves sustainability.

Our guide told us that sustainability is done on an individual level. Its apart of their culture to reduce their impact on the environment, and it shows. In almost every store we go to, you can find around 6 garbage bins, each for a specific type of product rather than only a trash and recycling bin. We also learnt that Icelands biggest sources of income are tourism and fishing. After our trip to the University, we went back to our hostel to have lunch and immediately after headed to Húsavík to go whale watching aboard an old sail boat called Hilda.

It was whale after whale for the 3 and a half hours we were out at sea. We saw many humpback whales, and even a blue whale which is extremely rare.

On our way back, we went to Puffin Island which, as you might guess, was covered in puffins. I mean, just look at how many puffins there were! (You might need to zoom in to see them all)

Yes, all those black specs are puffins. After the whale watching, we were given an hour or so to grab dinner. Me, Shivam, Matthew, Hakuto, and Geneva went got Indian food which tasted really good.

To conclude the day, we all met in the town square, talked about what we have learned so far and, as usual, discussed our plan for tomorrow. Overall I had a really fun day today, especially seeing those whales!

Day 4 - Geothermal Exhibit, Akureyri

Our day began at 8:00. We had to pack up all of our things since we were leaving Reykjavik for Akureyri that day. We headed out at around 9 am for the geothermal exhibit.

We arrived at the geothermal exhibit around 10. There our tour guide introduced us to Icelandic geology and how geothermal energy works. We learned how the tectonic plates drifting away from one another leads to increased volcanic activity. He also taught us about hotspots and compared the Icelandic hotspot volcanoes to those in the U.S, like Yellowstone and Hawaii. Volcanic activity produces a rock called basalt, which is what 90% of Icelandic rock is. Basalt rock has many holes, because of the gas bubbles trapped when the rock forms. These holes are what allow the accumulation of groundwater. In fact, around volcanoes there is very little surface water because precipitation gets absorbed into the basalt extremely quickly. The large quantities of groundwater is what allows geothermal energy to run. However, geothermal energy is also reliant on high energy areas, where magma stored underground heats up groundwater. The groundwater above magma chambers is in liquid form due to the pressure of the area. Geothermal energy needs steam, so when they drill a hole into that groundwater, the pressure is lowered so it seeps up above the surface. Various pipes and systems at the plant separate the steam from the mineral rich water (which is reminiscent of Blue Lagoon). The system has two sets of pipes, one which holds fresh water, and the other which holds the mineral water. The two pipes run close to each other, which heats up the fresh water and provides heated water to most Icelandic households and has since the 70s. We then learned about CarbFix. Since geothermal energy production produces carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, it isn't renewable. Hydrogen sulfide can cause acid rain, while carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas. To combat that, CarbFix developed a method where they take gaseous carbon dioxide, dissolve it in water, and inject it into the basalt. This mineralized the liquid. However, this is only a short term solution to combat the climate crisis, as it blocks water stores which would eventually lower groundwater levels. Hopefully though, it can be introduced into the U.S and other countries with basalt to lower carbon emissions. After a bit of time exploring the exhibit, we put on vests and safety helmets and went to the CarbFix igloo-like domes where we could see the inner pipes and mechanics.

Afterward, we went into the gift shop before venturing on our 6 hour bus ride to Akureyri. We had two stops on the way there. One for lunchtime and another just for a break. On the bus people slept, snacked, talked, and played various games, like Uno and Super Smash Bros. Once we arrived on Akureyri, we settled in and were able to go out on our own to get dinner. Some ate sushi, others ate burgers, while other ate lasagna and hot dogs. After dinner, most headed to the community pool to relax before the university tour and whale watching tomorrow. By Chizo Nwokocha

Day 3 - Skogar Museum, Waterfalls & Glacier Hike

To begin our day, we woke up early in the morning to catch the bus at 8am, functioning on minimal sleep from the night before since we only arrived at our hostel at 10pm. On the hour and a half drive to our destinations, the fatigue caught up to us and we all slept in the bus, waking up to a collection of sights filled with intricate rock formations and various farm animals, including horses, sheeps and mountain goats.

We took a quick pit-stop at a convenience store before arriving at our first destination, Skogar Museum. For some context, Skogar Museum holds a collection of artifacts which are relevant to Iceland. In the main facility, there were multiple rooms, dedicated to farming equipment, ancient clothing, kitchenware, etc. Outside, there were smaller buildings that was once an entire village which included a church, various houses and a school in the distance. Our tour guide took us around certain parts of the main building, introducing us to the traditional clothing of Icelandic women and the largest artefact they had in the museum, a ship similar to those of the Vikings. Once we finished, we crowded in the bus again to head to a waterfall close by.

We arrived at the waterfall after around 20 minutes and were immediately confronted by the rumbling sound of the water falling down the cliff and the crowd of people surrounding the base of the waterfall to take their own photos. Once we exited the bus, some decided to inch closer to the waterfall, getting increasingly sprayed by water with each step they took. Others decided to climb up a staircase with over 500 steps, making it to the top of the waterfall and back with just enough time to spare before we left. The most ambitious decided to enter the waterfall itself, while the rest of us ate our bagged lunches on the outskirts. After we wrapped up, we headed to the bus to go on our glacier hike.

The main attraction of the day had come as we waited in anticipation to climb the glacier. We strapped into our harnesses and helmets, layered up to face the chilly wind. In small groups, we entered a school bus, where we received our crampons (shoes with spikes on the soles) and listened to the rules of our instructors. Once everyone was ready, we headed down a 1km trail towards the base of the glacier, viewing the rocky environment that surrounded us. After we arrived, we circled up on the black sand alongside the lake, following the directions for putting on our crampons. The three rules we were instructed to practice were to make sure the crampons were placed directly on the ground, instead of heel first, having a wide stance about a shoulder-width apart and bringing our legs up higher than normal to give ourselves space. Subsequently, we followed each other in a single-file line, testing out the crampons along the way. As we climbed up the glacier, our instructors showed us how the ash from the surrounding volcanos gave the glaciers a black appearance, covering up the blue ice. They also handed us pieces of ice, through which we could see a rainbow being formed by the air bubbles and ash trapped inside. We kept climbing up the mountain, our chills turning into sweat as we kept walking and avoiding obstacles. Once we finally reached the top, we took a bunch of pictures and viewed their scientific machine containing a rope attached to a metal figure for measuring the elevation of the ice over time. Due to climate change, the ice had decreased significantly and as a result, the rope was more apparent now than before. Afterwards, we descended down the glacier, only stopping to put clay on our face, which had formed from the ash mixing with the water and to drink the water that was flowing downwards, using the pickaxes to hold ourselves in place. Once we reached the bottom, we took off our crampons, cleaned them and headed back to the bus through the intial pathway.

After an exhausing treck through the glacier, as we had walked nonstop for four hours straight, we all collapsed into our bus seats, anxious to return to the hostel. But before we embarked on our long journey back, we took a quick pit-stop at a different waterfall, one which allowed us to go behind it. We pulled up into the parking lot and immediately started walking towards the waterfall, which looked similar to the one we had previously visited. As soon as we took the stairs upwards, the water splashed all over us, with some wearing their rain jackets compared to those who only had their t-shirts. The wind was especially rampant during that time as the water kept hitting us until we finally reached the bend around the corner where we were behind the waterfall. Some of us went to the base of the waterfall while others carried onwards, navigating through the wet rocks. When we finally came full circle, we were all drenched in water, forcing us to change or remove our top layers of clothing. When we came on the bus, we were extremely fatigue and tired as we took the bus all the way back to the hostel.

by Shruti Balachander