Our day began at the Helmholtz Institut Aachen. The main focus we got to learn about was the cardiovascular engineering. This institution builds many devices that are meant to contribute with the patients therapy and their rehabilitation. Basically, to prolong their life. They showed us the heart valves they have created, from old to recent ones, and what problems the old ones had when placing it in the heart. They showed us artificial hearts, which is so awesome but sort of scary. Just imagine meeting a person who is walking around with an artificial heart that the mind can not control. We got to view some heart and lung support devices along with several simulations relating to the heart's physiology in their labs filled with workers. By the way, the mainly used porcine blood, and their heart valves were from porcine (biological implants), others were mechanical, and the main ones were made out of polymer. The polymer heart valves are meant to be safer with older patients. If in your 70s or 80s, it is extremely risky to have an open heart surgery to implant a mechanical or biological heart valve, so they created the polymer heart valve, which are implanted using a catheter using the vascular system, much safer than having an open heart surgery. Overall, the institute was very interesting and would definitely recommend it, even for non engineers students!
The rest of the afternoon consisted in the small platz of Aachen's city center. It seemed quite small and you can't really get lost there, similar to Bonn. Lauren, Laura, Jess and I ended up eating at some nice little restaurant and we all had schnitzels! Wow! They were amazing, Jess and I liked them way more than the Viennas' schnitzels, Sorry Vienna! The price was good and the plate was big! We were definitely stuffed afterwards! The an hour and a half to spare, we visited Starbucks and some clothing stores, typical girls :D
After our three hour break was done, we had a tour over the Cathedral, and the treasuries. The cathedral is a Roman Catholic church and the oldest cathedral in northern Europe. It was the church of coronation for 30 German kings and 12 queens. We got a tour of the treasuries as well which consisted of the Cross of Lothair, the Throne of Charlemagne, the sarcophagus of Charlemagne, Reliquary bust of Charlemagne, Mosaics, a Chandelier, some shrines, and much more. The Throne was actually very interesting. Charlemagne decided not to build it out of gold but out of marble which many roman emperors were coronated in that very seat, except Charlemagne. However they were only allowed to use it once for the coronation and never again seat on it. Supposedly the marble was from the land of Jerusalem where Jesus once stepped on. Unless I heard wrong? The fact is, the marble is from Jerusalem and the throne is meant to be for when Jesus returns for judgement day. The impression I have, is that Charlemagne was a very humble and unselfish king in his time. He thought and considered his people a lot. Most of the cathedral had be renovated many times, and many sections and chapels had been added throughout the centuries, so much of the cathedral is not what it once looked like during Charlemagne time. Historians are not evens sure of how it looked like. There are only four objects that are original and date back to the Carolingian era, the columns, the chandelier, the throne, and then mosaic on the ceiling. The original is behind the new restored mosaic (same picture). They wanted to restore the cathedral back to the time of Charlemagne, but it was impossible, no one knew what it was meant to look like. So they visited different churches, and got ideas, and put it into the cathedral. One last thing that really got my attention, was Charlemagne's sarcophagus. He was buried in the Cathedral and laid there for several centuries until Emperor Otto open the vault. The sarcophagus has the story of the Greek goddess Persephone, who was abducted and raped by Hades, king of the underworld. Supposedly, when Charlemagne came across the sarcophagus, he fell in love with it, stole it, and had the sarcophagus cleaned along with had the body that was lying inside removed. There is so much more to tell, but I definitely recommend you to visit the Cathedral and get a tour guide, specifically Pierre ;).
Overall, I enjoyed this trip very much! It is always so interesting to learn about Europe's history. Tschüs!!
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