Week 4 : June 16 – June 23
We’ve made our way to Essen and our hostile genuinely blew my mind away. Not only is there enough space for all 15 of us to have our own bed, we have at least six showers, free coffee and other soft drinks, and lets not forget about the sauna. That’s right SAUNA. Unperfekthaus proves to be a beautiful establishment that keeps getting better and better. With so many places to explore I’m super content!
And although transit is not as fleshed out as Berlin – we share 1 or 2 day transit passes for 5 students now – the places we visit never cease to amaze me.
We focused a lot on the history of mining within Essen and neighboring towns. And a lot of the places we visited, like Landschafts park, prioritized the idea of fourth nature – where the natural earth takes over a once industrialized area. Through the different notes, sections, and rough plans of the park I don’t think I’ll ever forget the the park’s unique beauty.
Of course nothing can ever end our work grind. We were separated into pairs in order to collect the DBH (diameter at breast height) of birch trees in a certain area of Landschafts park. My teammate Tiffany and I would continue to measure other birch trees that were north, south, east, and west of one random central tree. In addition to DBH we collected height, latitude, and longitude. Measuring proved to be difficult but when your teammate is exactly 5 feet tall it becomes easier to “measure in Tiffanys!” Even though the picture is cut off this birch proved to be 11 Tiffanys, or 55 feet) tall!!
The end of the week brought the beginning of our travel weekend- where we were given a three day weekend to travel anywhere we please! My friends and I chose to travel to Amsterdam and boy is it different! The many building facades and obsessions with bikes really took me by surprise. They have decks of underground parking dedicated to bikes alone. That’s freaking wild.
And while in Amsterdam I got my sister a Miffy plush! I had no clue she was made in the Netherlands!
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