Adventures in the Life of a Science Nerd: A new field...

So, I was going to wait until tonight to post something, but since I have an hour and I doubt anything will be different today than the last two, might as well do this.

Wednesday, I switched departments (or especialidads as they call them) to endocrinology. I can say now that it is not something I see myself doing in the future. It involves a lot of sitting and patient consults. Not a field I recommend if you get bored really easily or don't get enough sleep the night before. I spent a lot of time between patients staring out the window at some wild horses in a field to try and keep myself awake.

Thursday was about the same with a few minor differences. Different doctor, a medical student with the doctor, and some department turmoil that I caught enough of the words to kind of figure out what was happening. I spent a good amount of time at the beginning sitting by myself, but a resident (med student) came in to talk to me. She was really nice. She went to school in Columbia but could not get into a hospital there and chose Spain as her next option. It was nice having someone who understood a little more English because not many people in the department do.

I am there again today (Friday) and I doubt anything will be different. Excited to see what else this experience has to offer.

On a different note, we went on our first excursion as a group on Wednesday night. We got a tour around almost the entire city of Ourense (it literally takes about 20-30 minutes to walk across) where we learned about some of the places and activities we could see and do while we were here. The city is known for its hot springs, so of course one of those was on the list, but we also went into the cathedral and saw the city hall and visited a palace. In Spain, every city has many churches and palaces but only one cathedral. The palaces were used as social clubs for parties and dinners. Ourense is also known for its bridges because it is located along the Miño river.

After our tour, we were given about an hour to walk around the mall (like the shopping kind) before dinner. It was nice. Dinner was great. Meals in Spain are so large. I think it is because they want you to spend more time eating as there is an ideology that meals are a time to spend with company. It is nice being able to use that time to talk to everybody. I never realized what it would be like to be around such likeminded people. We get a lot of strange looks because of the size of our group and the fact that we speak English, and sometimes for our topics of conversation from those who understand English.

One thing we learned about on our tour is about El Camino, "The Way." This is when people come and backpack Spai, traveling by foot from different locations to the city of Santiago de Compostela, as a way to find themselves and an inner peace and faith that they may have not had before. We have met some travelers that are on this journey and find welcome relief when some speak English.

This is city hall/ museum. The town square in front of this is a location for a lot of fiestas because it is located in the center of the city.

This is inside the cathedral. There were a lot of gold-plated wood structures and figures inside, and they actively hold mass in there almost every day.