I Ate a Bunny in a College Cafeteria #HogsAbroad

The title is pretty much self explanatory. It tasted amazing but sadly I doubt that Brough dining hall will start serving those cute little fluffballs any time soon.

Anyways, in addition to all the bunny munchin' I have actually been learning an immense amount about the variances in cultures and the nifty science on our academic horizon.

The lectures since the last of these assignment blog posts have titles ranging from "Aquaculture: The Blue Biotechnology of the Future" to "Microbially Produced Biosurfactants: General Introduction & Sophorolipid Case Study."

In the aquaculture lecture we learned the ancient history of aquaculture along with the modern science of it and the massive current levels of production. Contrary to agriculture is the exponentially growing use of this type of food production. And as always scaling up (especially rapidly) causes serious issues on the sustainability front. Fish are by far the most sustainable and healthy meat source but only when the production of the food doesn't involve destroying marine ecosystems and oceanic fish supplies. So I'm a big fan of aquaculture, but only if it can go through sustainable intensification when trying to oust the, often harmful, fishing industry. Here is a neat photo of a Norwegian salmon farm that we studied.


The Friday lecture titled "The Belgian Beer Story" was also extremely interesting. Sitting at the ground zero of the history of beer production and not studying it would be a true travesty. Roland Verhe, a leader in the Flemish bioengineering field, ex brewery scientist, and native son of Gent gave the lecture and delved all the way back to the first usage of beer and through all of the intense intricacies that can be found in a country with hundreds of individual and highly regarded different breweries. The process of fermentation is so open to changes in variables such as water source and yeast culture that one can find immense differences in each brewery's structure.

The engaging lecture topic was well paired with the plethora of knowledge of Dr. Verhe making it one of the best of the program to date. Here is a nifty painting of some monks relying on their brewing technology to avoid the awful water quality of the Middle Ages:

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The planned weekend excursion to Paris was altered due to those pesky religious extremists. Instead, we journeyed to the northern coast of Belgium along the north sea to a little town called Oostende. It was a neat venture filled with a euphoric evening of fine meals and beach soccer with some friendly Belgian youngsters and some casually stoic staring off at the vastness of the sea.

The next day we went to Brugge for the day where we floated the canal and wandered the maze of cobblestone streets and alleyways. In the giant cathedral thingy there I saw a Pieta sculpture made by Michelangelo, which was one of those moments of pure frisson and dumbfoundery at the beauty of his work. Not much else to say and I am really, really sleepy so here is a photo of me pointing at the town Belfry:

and here is an exceptionally pretty photo of some super radical Flemish Swans:

One last thing: The US need a high speed rail network. The convenience and cost effectiveness of these Eurozone rail systems is astounding. If you ever need a nice example of the glories of socialistic policies, look no further than the European high speed rail network. Then change your political ideology so that I can go see my brothers and friends around the country as high speeds for low costs. Thanks.

Nighty night folks!
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Read more from Zack at woffabroad.blogspot.com/
To find out more about the U of A Faculty-Led: European Agriculture-Food Chain Sustainability program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/SUSTEurozone/