Samyu and her friends(Lewis, Yusef and Zerina) were middle school graduates from India, selected for a cultural trip to the Netherlands for 3 weeks. This blog narrates you about their journey together as four that the memory were much better, since...
During the Dutch War of Independence in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch found an ally in their arch enemy. Their struggle against Spain seemed almost hopeless and that is when the Dutch turned to water as a weapon against the Spanish by flooding enormous swaths of land to stop or even defeat the enemy. During the war, they deliberately flooded vast swaths of land to prevent the Spanish army from reaching them. Later, when Holland survived, the Dutch constructed a line of fortifications and waterworks to facilitate military inundations, known as the Dutch Water Line.
TRIP TO UTRECHT
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Morning 10:30 am
Our siblings were preoccupied with schoolwork, so Lewis, Zerina, Yusef, and I were the only ones who embarked on this vacation with our adult coordinators Mrs. Marieke and Mr. Beek. We arrived at the Waterline Museum of the Netherlands and it was a 400-meter walk to the museum pavilion from the parking lot. The museum was deserted, and only a few individuals were seen. The sun shone brightly, but it wasn't quite hot enough.
We had too many misconceptions when making presentations for this trip, and we walked with uncertainties and ambiguities. For approximately ten minutes, we went across a bridge to the museum. We only observed a canal, a scarecrow, and beech trees shedding their green leaves. The air had more warmth and more fragrance.
After we registered, we were handed wristbands and told to scan them on the exhibits in the museum to hear what they were attempting to tell us which sparked our interest.
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The museum brought the Waterline to life through personal stories, original elements and replicas, working models, and digital media. We were able to operate it ourselves and observe how inundation and dry pumping works.
By scanning our wristbands, people from different times took us along in their experiences. Maurits, the prince told us about the brilliant idea he had in 1589, a farmer's wife took us into her personal life in the Disaster Year 1672 and the soldier showed us the weak spots of the line in 1794. Engineer Kraijenhoff explained why the waterline was moved in 1815 and a workman let us experience for ourselves the harsh conditions under which he had to do his work in 1880.
