Every September, I wait outside Erasmus University for another exchange student.
Some arrive looking for the nearest taxi. Others promise they’ll cycle, then give up after the first rainy week.
Then Dorothy arrived, dragging her suitcase across the square.
“You’ll be easier than my Glasgow commute,” she said, and I believed her. Back home, university meant up to ninety minutes each way on ScotRail, then a bus or the subway. Public transport wasn’t a virtue she’d adopted for this exchange. It was simply how she’d always lived.
But before we ever met, she’d already made the hardest decision of her placement. There’s no direct flight from Scotland to Rotterdam. The honest option, flying into Amsterdam and taking an hour-long train south, cost more time and more thought than one direct route would have. She used the MyClimate calculator to compare her options anyway, chose an economy seat, and packed only what she needed. It didn’t erase the emissions of getting here. It meant she couldn’t pretend the flight didn’t count, which felt like the more truthful place to start. That’s SDG 13: Climate Action, not the easiest route, but a deliberate one.
I became part of her daily routine almost immediately. Lectures, the supermarket, evenings by the river—everything was just a ride away. Then came the Dutch rain, sweeping sideways across the Erasmusbrug. Most people would have called a taxi. After years of Glasgow weather, a little rain wasn’t going to stop her. She cycled anyway, dried off when she arrived, and laughed that she’d experienced “a proper Dutch welcome.” On the days when cycling genuinely wasn’t practical, she used the 9292 journey planner to combine trams and trains instead of automatically choosing a car. Those everyday decisions may seem small, but together they bring SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities to life, proving that sustainability isn’t about perfection, but about choosing better whenever you can.
Grocery runs are still my favourite. She already meal-preps in Glasgow to fuel her gym routine, so buying only what she’ll actually eat was never new to her. Still, she kept it up here, rescuing surplus food through Too Good To Go, choosing The Harvest for its farmer-sourced bowls, and carrying it all home in a Susan Bijl bag instead of plastic. Small habits, repeated without needing to be reminded: SDG 12: Responsible Consumption, in a shopping bag.
None of this was one grand gesture. It was a longer train instead of a shorter flight. A wet ride instead of a dry taxi. A full fridge instead of a half-eaten one.
I’m only a second-hand Dutch omafiets, chipped paint, squeaky brakes. But if I helped one exchange student choose the harder, quieter option enough times that it stopped feeling hard, I’d say we both travelled well.
References
1. MyClimate Flight Calculator: https://co2.myclimate.org/en/calculate_emissions
2. UN Sustainable Development Goals: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
3. 9292 Dutch Transit App: https://9292.nl/en
4. Too Good To Go: https://toogoodtogo.com
5. The Harvest Rotterdam: https://theharvest.nl/
6. Spotted by Locals Rotterdam (Susan Bijl): www.spottedbylocals.com/rotterdam/shopping/
