Almost July!?!?!

The rest of my clinical observations have been trying, but interesting. Today I observed internal medicine and on Wednesday I was in the neonatal unit. It was pretty hard seeing the tiny babies all hooked up to machines and struggling to survive. There was one who had suffered severe asphyxia during birth and was now essentially brain-dead. I couldn't imagine being in her parent's shoes.

I only have one day left in my observation at the private hospital. The grand finale is going to be scrubbing in on surgery on Monday. Due to the lack of privacy laws in this country, there have been rumors that we may be allowed to bring camaras into the OR, so get excited! Apparently at the public hospital next week we might get to see a baby get born. I'm not going to lie, it sounds less than appetizing to me. Maybe it'll be life-affirming and beautiful, but I'm pretty sure it'll just be bloody and gross.

Speaking of bloody and gross, I started shadowing in a research lab this week. There were animal rights protesters outside the building. It was very cute. The lab I'm in works on microglial cell cultures, which is really exciting because that's what I worked with all last summer so I'm already familiar with the protocols and chemicals, etc. It's cool to watch how they do things here because they have so fewer resources but there still manage to do really important science. The research institute I'm shadowing at is the largest in Chile, and they only have ~28 labs.


I got a new camara, so here's some pictures from today:

We went to Bellavista, where we got cotton candy at a little park/zoo thing, and then headed over to Pablo Neruda's Santiago dwelling where we took a really fascinating tour and learned all about his secret love affair and how he built the house to accommodate it. There's also a lot of evidence of destruction/re-building because the house was badly burnt during the 1973 coup. Now I've toured two out of his three houses (see the entry from Vina), so I feel like I have to go back to Valpo and catch the third too.



Tonight we decided to explore a new neighborhood, Ñuñoa, where we visited a microbrewery. (Disclaimer: I am legal drinking age in Chile)
That's my "which one should we choose?" face. The other lovely ladies are Katie and Kirsten. These are the beers we tasted -- rubio (blonde), ambar (amber), and negro (black). I preferred the amber. The "negro" was faaar too intense for me. Kinda tasted like tar. But I guess some people are into that. The rubio tasted like vaguely beer-flavored water.


We decided that even with the poet's house and the microbrewery, we hadn't been quite artsy enough today, so then we went to a Jazz Club.

And that was my day in pictures! Thank you and come again soon.







Chilenismo of the day: Manjar. I'm kinda cheating cus this is actually a food, not a modismo, but it deserves a mention. Manjar is in any chilean candy worth eating, and most desserts...and some savory dishes. It's pretty much the same thing as Dulce de Leche...which is like Caramel made from condensed milk rather than sugar. It's incredible. They make these candies called Afajor, which are like baby cakes with Manjar in the middle, coated in chocolate. I'm making it my duty to try every brand and figure out which is the best and then take a huge box home.