Day 4

Leiden...Quite possibly the most adorable town we've seen so far. 

Brick streets, historic houses, windmills, and not to mention Bibliotheca Thysiana and Museum Boerhaave. At the Biblioteca, we got to see (and touch!!!) a Bible from 1479. 

The library was enormous...especially for being made in the 17th century by Johannesburg Thysius and still being in the original building. 

We got to see some mathematics text books, being the nerds that we engineers are.

It was amazing that the original glass was still intact. 

On our free time, we wandered through the city, and naturally I had to get some espresso! We found an amazing little cafe where I had a delicious club sandwich! 

After lunch we all walked to the storage facility for the artifacts of the Museum Boerhaave, as it is currently under renovation. Though we did not get to see the museum, we got to see a large sampling of the 40,000 artifacts that the museum owns. Being interested in the biomedical devices field, it was extraordinary to see all of the devices over time. The device that stuck out the most was one of the first dialysis machines. The curator said that 17 out of the 70 people who first used it died just due to the horrific methods of extracting and filtering the blood. 

A lot of the devices back then had many negative effects for the patient at hand. I thought it was fascinating to see the evolution of the medical devices. Also, I never thought I'd be able to touch devices like these! I saw a ventilator, some weird fetus like things in jars, and of course one of the first ape skeletons. 

We saw some old electronic devices as well. 

Overall, the experience was one that on it's own has made this trip the most memorable I've had. That night we found a new cafe in Amsterdam to try...Lucca Due where I got some AMAZING carpaccio! 

After food, we all went out for some drinks and had quite the time dancing! :P