(by Carina van Weelden, Zeeland University of Applied Sciences)
Today should become a very special day for all of us, not only because we should see the Expo and present our results to a jury of experts, but also because it was our last evening together as a group.
Early in the morning, we reached the Expo area and found our way through what seemed to be hundreds of people. We had heard before that the Expo was crowded, and a lot of people would go and visit, but waiting times of 5 and even 9 hours in the queues before different pavilions already at 10 am was beyond my expectation.
Luckily, we first had the chance to enjoy the water show of the Rotterda
m pavilion, which was especially for our group temporally closed off for the public. While water was falling down from the roof, letters and characters wandered across the created waterfall explaining an innovative water storage system in an urban environment.
After this fascinating event, we could spend the time till the presentations in the evening on our own. Together with a Chinese friend, Wen Bo, I strolled through different joined pavilions, learned about Chinese artists as well as Brazilian city design and even found an environmental campaign of the city of Freiburg in Germany, where I used to live. It is amazing, how many different subjects are discussed in the exhibition and each of them has some interactive and innovative element!
To get from the west to the east side of the Huangpu River, we had to take the ferry, which meant one hour waiting in the queue. Wen Bo was bravely holding up the umbrella against the sun for both of us, otherwise I would probably have melted right on the spot.
As soon as we arrived on the other side of the river, I saw only people standing, sitting and walking everywhere, and I felt like I wanted to go back across the water, which actually wasn’t an option because the queues grew to at least 2 hours of waiting. So we fought our way through the mass. But after seeing a few of these great buildings from the outside, we decided to rather relax a bit in the Expo garden at the riverside.
Sitting on the grass patches in-between the expo wetland that was especially created to treat the waste water on the area, we two girls ate grapes and discussed the differences between western and Chinese family and education issues.
Relaxed and equipped with new energy, we finally made way to the Dutch pavilion, through the happy street all the way up to the golden crown: the VIP lounge! I was rather nervous when the show started, and that our group was unexpectedly chosen to be the first to pitch, didn’t help very much. But having my group members at my side did help a lot, so I could do my best to present the advantages of our integrated eco-park in front of the southern coast of Shanghai with the motivation of seven. Thank you guys!
While the other groups presented, I realised again, what a great job everybody did and that both posters and pitches were more than adequate to represent Dutch (and Chinese) water education. When you looked around, everybody said they enjoyed the program and learned from each other. It was an excited atmosphere in the room until the winners of the challenges were announced: To my big surprise, our group even made second place in the student challenge and won the public award! With beaming faces and big books in our hands, we shot some last pictures and started off to enjoy the hours we still had together. A là Chinese, we sat down in a 24-hours noodle-bar, toasted with warm soya-milk instead of beer or Champaign and shared noodle soup. Although this was maybe not the most elegant way to celebrate, I feel that it was exactly the right thing to do at the right time, remembering my newly won friends as they are.
In German, we have a saying: “You always see each other twice in life.” So everything left for me to do, is to keep my eyes open till one day I will sit with them at one table again…
