man.

i had an enormous blog post typed, but then the power went out and i lost everything.

pretend i said a lot of cool stuff.

India

Three days later, and I'm getting on a plane again. I'm headed to India this time, for my cousin's wedding. I'm excited, but still kind of exhausted from the Azores...I'll have to take it one step at a time I guess.

I'll have less regular internet access while I'm there, so updates will be less frequent than the Azores.

My sleep cycle is going to be so screwed by the end of this.

More posts on the other side of 14 hour flights.

Tell the World I'm Coming Home

This is it. I'm sitting in the airport in Lajes in Terceira, waiting to board my flight to Ponta Delgada in an hour. From there its on to Boston, and then to RDU tomorrow morning.

This trip has been beyond amazing. From a professional standpoint, I've seen things at the hospital that have been enormously affirming; I know now for sure that medicine is what I want to do with my life. I can't thank everyone at the hospital enough, Dr. Claudio especially, for everything that they've done for us these past six weeks.

This trip has also been amazing from a culturally. Life in the Azores is completely different from what I'm used to in the States; the living here is easy; the people are very proud of their heritage, and fiercely protective of their traditions. They are some of the nicest people I've ever met; the openness of the Festas and the Sanjonina's festival are testament to that. The raw, breathtaking scenery of the rocky beaches, volcanoes, and rolling hills juxtaposed with the energy of the bullfights and Touradas make this an experience I won't soon forget.

Finally, there are all the people I met on this trip. All of us (Vanessa, Hamrick, Fei Fei, Aisha, Singer, Erin, Nicole, Chris, and Rozo) have become very close over these past six weeks; people I am sure I would not have met otherwise. I'm glad I got to meet them; we've had some awesome memories that have made an awesome trip 1000 times better. Love y'all.

There is a restaurant near our Residencia called 1516, where we ate at least 5 or 6 times. The food there was amazing, but we also kept going back because of our waiter. Pedro is easily the most energetic person I've ever met, and a perfect example of the type of people here. Our first time there, he gave us all nicknames to remember us better (maybe he knew we would all be coming back). I was "The General," because I asked something about the way the Chef prepared a dish. Apparently in Portuguese, Chef means "chief," as in the military rank. Ever since then, he's called me that. Last night we decided to make our last meal at 1516. When Pedro found out we were leaving the next day, he instantly invited us over to his house later that night. He wouldn't get off of work until about 2 am, so we decided to head over there after dinner. We walked around our section of the city talking for a little bit, visiting all the places that have become so familiar to us over the past six weeks. I was feeling a little nostalgic, which is funny given the fact that I didn't even know that the Azores existed before I got here. In six (entirely too short) weeks, this place has clicked with me.

Without a doubt, I'm excited to go back home and seeing my family. In a week, I'll be in India for my cousin's wedding. But I'm also sad to leave this place. I really hope to come back here at some point in the future, whenever that may be. Hopefully I'll have a similar experience next time, though it'll be hard to top this trip.

I love my team.

-Ranjan Banerjee

Weekend in Sao Miguel

Having spent 4 weeks on Terceira, some of us decided that it was time to explore some other islands in the Azores. We (Vanessa, Nicole, Laura Hamrick, Laura Ruzo, Aisha, Erin, and I) arrived in Sao Miguel on Friday by a three hour ferry ride and explored the city of Ponta Delgada. This is the same city we had flown into from Boston, but we hadn’t had the chance to explore it much despite a 8 hour layover because none of us had slept in over a day by that point.

Ponta Delgada is a tourist destination, and from the minute we landed the differences between it and Angra were clear. Everything was more city-like…they had high rises (!), hotels, tourist shops, and malls right along the ocean. Usually I don’t like over-commercialized tourist areas, but I think Ponta Delgada pulled it off quite well.

Anyway, we landed around 4 pm, and found our residencia. We were staying here for free, since we had worked it out with the residencia in Angra. I think this is a network of dorms for college students who live on different islands, something that’s very convenient for us. This residencia was very new, and very nice; much more so than our residencia in Angra. After freaking out about this for an hour or so, we got dinner, walked around, and went to bed. The next day was a big day.

We had decided that it in order to see the island fully, we would need transportation. We had initially wanted scooters, but ended up renting a car because 1) it was safer 2) easier to keep everyone together and 3) it was cheaper (when split among 7 people). It ended up being 26 euros per person for two days, which was nowhere near as expensive as I thought it would be. It turns out I’m the only one in the group who is 21 (the legal age to rent a car here). Luckily, I was also the only person in the group who knew how to drive a manual transmission car. This is a good thing because all they have in the Azores are manual cars. I’ve been driving manual cars all my life, so I was ok with being driver.

We rented a 7 passenger van. It was a brand new, 2011 Volkswagen Sharan. It was a little bigger than a Toyota Sienna, and a LOT more powerful. When I first got the car, I was feeling pretty confident about myself being able to handle it; how different can it be from the Honda Civic that I usually drive? With this in mind, I initially chose not to get the insurance when I was doing the paperwork for the car. That changed quickly.

First of all, this car had 6 gears (instead of the 5 that I’m used to), and the Reverse gear was on the opposite side of the gear schematic (in the States I would have to go right then down to go into reverse, whereas here I would have to push down on the gear shift, then go left, and then up). I didn’t realize this, so I almost rear ended the car in front of me as soon as I started driving because I switched into 6^th gear instead of reverse. After a minute of freaking out, I got my shit together and pulled out of the rental car lot.

The first hour was stressful. European streets are TINY, and this van is ENORMOUS. On top of that, people generally park and drive wherever and however they want on the street, so going down a city street here is an obstacle course. Also almost every street is one way, and all of them look the same. On top of THAT, the range for first gear in the van was wayyyy shorter than I was used to…I would have to switch into 2^nd gear as almost as soon as I started moving, or the car would stall. There’s nothing like stalling on a tiny, uphill street in a massive van with 15 pissed off Portuguese people honking behind you. It was ok though, I think stalling the first few times in a new car that you’re not used to is excusable (any time else, you run the risk of losing respect).

After going back to the residencia and picking up everyone else, we decided as a group to get the insurance for the car. I had good faith in my driving ability (and I’d like to think everyone else did too); I was already starting to get used to the car. But, it would make everyone else (along with me) feel a lot better if we knew we didn’t have to pay 2000 euros if we scratched the sides. So we went back to the rental place and purchased insurance; it worked out to 72 euros for two days, or around 10 euros a person.

We loaded up the car with everyone and set out. I was craving to get out of the city and onto wider, more open streets, so I could finally get out of 3^rd gear and see what this car could do. We took the coastal highway, and headed for the hot springs.

The view was beautiful. On one side we had rolling green pastures s created by volcanic lava flows, and on the other side was had the deep blue of the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, I had started getting comfortable with the car, and allowed myself to relax. This car really was a blast to drive. It had a ridiculous amount of power, and it was fully loaded.

Anyway, we started driving up a mountain, where the hot springs were located. The weather had been nice on the coast, but as soon as we gained altitude, everything became shrouded in fog. The visibility was about 10 or 15 feet in front of the car. The scenery was raw nature; I think I preferred it to be a little foggy rather than completely clear, because it lent an air of mystery to our surroundings.

Along the way, we saw signs for sulfur springs, and decided to get out and look. The geysers were intense, and a reminder that we were on an archipelago made of up fully active volcanoes. By this time it was cold and drizzling slightly, so the geysers felt pretty good. After taking a lot of pictures, we sang and recorded the alma mater. I’ll talk about that for a little bit.

We’ve made it a point on this trip to record ourselves singing the alma mater at each point we stop on this trip. We record ourselves while we do this, with the goal of editing all of them together to make a massive 30 minute alma mater video by the end of the trip. For those of you that don’t know the alma mater and fight song (and seriously, shame on you if you go to UNC and you don’t), it’s below:

Hark the sound of Tarheel voices

Ringing clear and true

Singing Carolina’s praises

Shouting NCU (N – C – U!)

Hail to the brightest start of all

Clear its radiance shine

Carolina (priceless gem!)

Receive our praises thine

Fight song:

I’m a Tarheel born

I’m a Tarheel bred

And when I die I’ll be Tarheel dead

So its rah rah Carolina ‘lina

Rah rah Carolina ‘lina

Rah rah Carolina ‘lina

GO TO HELL DUKE (originally ended with rah-rah-rah, but this ones a lot better I think)

OK back to the trip. We pressed on to the hot springs, where we would be able to swim. We eventually found them in this sleepy little town, made lonelier by the fact that by this time it was cold raining pretty hard. After changing into our trunks (while freezing our asses off), we jumped into the springs.

This place was amazing. The water was 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which was perfect against the cold and the rain of the atmosphere. It was actually a ferrous spring, so there was a large amount of iron in the water, and the rocks surrounding it were oxidized to a deep orange. It was a great relaxant, especially after the stress of driving the van with the fear of crashing it, and losing our way more than a few times. Apparently you’re only supposed to stay in the iron pools for 30 mins at a time. However, it was so warm and comfortable, we stayed in it for about an hour and half, by the end of which everyone was feeling kind of woozy. So we decided to get out. We got back in the car (which had been precariously parked on a hill more or less in the middle of the street, which was ok because apparently everyone parks wherever they feel like it here) and took the coastal road back to the residencia. BY the time we got back it was around 6 or 7, and we were starving. We went out to eat, came back, and chilled until it was bed time. Good day.

By the end of the day I was driving like a pro; I had become totally used to the van, and could drive it comfortably even in the tiny city streets of Ponta Delgada. Nice.

Sunday morning we got started around 11. The goal this time was to explore the other side of the island, particularly the city of Sete Cidades (7 Cities) where we had heard from locals was a very beautiful lake. The drive there was uneventful (in the sense that we had amazing scenery all around us the entire way). Sete Cidades is a city located in the center of a MASSIVE volcanic crater, bounded by two enormous lakes. We drove into it from the top, getting a ridiculous view of everything around us.

The town itself wasn’t anything special; I actually drove through it on accident without realizing that we were already there. After turning around (using a 18 point turn, which was required with a van that large), we ate lunch (completely a rip off btw, but I won’t harp on that too much), and went hiking around the lake and crater.

I won’t try to describe how it was in words because that won’t do it justice. Suffice to say that it was awesome, and I took a lot of pictures. I’ll put them up (someday).

After spending a few hours there, we drove back to the residencia. By the time we got back, it was around 7. We stopped at the mall on the way back, got dinner there (KFC!!!!!!), and decided that some of us wanted to see The Hangover Part II at the movie theater there. Aisha and I drove Vaness and Nicole back to the Residencia because they didn’t feel like watching the movie, and then got horribly lost on the way back to the mall. I knew I took the wrong road off a roundabout, but I didn’t have any place to turn back around for about 5 miles, because EVERY FREAKING ROAD ON THIS ISLAND IS ONE WAY. Aisha and I ended up in another city all together, and I had to walk into a very seedy bar to ask how to get back to Ponta Delgada, which was interesting because he didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Portuguese. We mimed and made noises for a little bit, and he finally understood where I wanted to go. I memorized the order and direction in which he pointed, got in the van again, and started driving.

The directions he had given me were totally wrong. By this time we were about 20 mins away from the movie starting. I finally decided that screw it, I’m going to take random turns until we run into something we recognize. Surprisingly this worked; Aisha spotted a pharmacy that we had passed earlier, so we were able to find out way back to the mall. 10 mins ahead of schedule. Score.

The people watching the movie was Erin, Laura H, Laura R, Aisha, and I. The prices were 5 euros (about 8 dolalrs), the same that we would pay in the States. We went to buy our tickets for the 10 pm showing, but that was sold out. The next one was at midnight, so we decided to catch that. We had about 2 hours, so we decided to get some drinks and walk around the beach.

After doing that for a little bit, we came back, watched the movie, drove back to the residencia, and went to bed.

Now I’m sitting on the ferry back to the Terciera, with about an hour and a half left in the journey. My back hurts from sitting up and typing this. I’m going to sleep.

Outpatient Surgery and Festas

Yesterday I got to the hospital a little bit later than usual. I could say that I had a good reason, but then I'd be lying, because I just woke up late.

I was walking around looking for Claudio, getting stares from the patients (blending into this island is harder than I thought). I was about to walk through the double doors that led into the general medicine wing when I was almost flattened by Claudio sprinting out the other way. He was in a hurry; there were many outpatient surgeries scheduled that day, and Claudio really wanted to see them. Even though he is an internist, he is a surgeon at heart; he's actually leaving for Canada next month where he'll be doing a surgery rotation.

Anyway, we ran down to the outpatient building, and realized that the surgeon wasn't there yet. So we got coffee while we waited, and Claudio told me part of his life story. Can't mention large parts of it in writing, so I'll let that remain a mystery.

After a while, we went back to the outpatient clinic and scrubbed in for the surgery. There were 4 or 5 of them scheduled that day, and they were almost all cyst removals. Claudio was really excited to do them, so he took over after the actual surgeon did the first one. I had two cysts on my chin back in the day, but it was still more gross than I expected it to be. This was the first time I'd seen people use anesthesia...which I guess is a good thing because it shows that Azoreans aren't invincible robots who FEEL NO PAIN after all.

Claudio gave me an up close look at all the surgeries; I was literally standing over his shoulder while he was cutting/suturing. The procedures them selves didn't take that long; maybe about 15-20 mins each. I could really feel the energy coming from Claudio as he worked; he was born to do this. Which I guess is a good thing for the patient.

After the hospital, we didn't do much, except go to a festa. I alluded to these in an earlier post, but in a nutshell, festas are open street parties put on by churches for a few weeks during the summer. Anyone can come to them...they have free food, free wine, and bread. They're a pretty big deal around here...when a meal is about to start, they set off fireworks so people from all over the city can find the street where the festa is being held. And then they flock to find it.

If beef and sausage didn't make up such a big part of the Azorean diet (there are more cows than people here, so the beef here is very very cheap...also very good from what I'v been told), I would literally never have to pay for food for the remainder of the time here; I could go festa hopping for all three meals. Oh well, at least the bread is delicious. Also the wine is a LOT stronger than I expected...I think its home brewed, because it wasn't like any wine I'd tasted before. Not that it was bad; but it really sneaks up on you if you're not careful.

Two more weeks left. Hard to believe I've already been here a month. I definitely want to come back at some point; this place is amazing.

Intubations

This morning I shadowed Claudio again. There wasn't much on the list; we saw some of his patients and he was officially done for the day. Afterwards, Claudio let us practice tracheal intubation on a dummy. The dummy was lifelike (besides the fact that it had no arms), so everything we did was at least somewhat close to reality. In teaching us this, Claudio also gave us a crash course in first aid and trauma response protocols. I had been CPR trained several times in the past, and what he told me was pretty similar to what I had learned.

In an intubation, I would have to insert a breathing tube into the patient's lungs, because they would not be able to breathe for themselves otherwise. I knew all about it, because they do it on every other episode of House. It was actually easier than I had thought it would be, but then again I wasn't under stress, with a patient's life on the line. I'm pretty sure it will be a lot tougher with the chaos of an emergency room and an actual patient.

After the hospital, Claudio took us out for lunch, after which we came back to the Residencia and had our meeting with Sarah for the academic discussion. Not too much going on today.

Volcanoes

Yesterday we went to Art's campground again to do some building work. It was mostly raking the grounds for leaves and large rocks, and setting up the tents and teepees. After a day of doing this, we camped out in the tents/teepees we built.

In the morning, we did a little bit more work (mostly moving stuff around and packing up) before coming back to the Residencia around 12. Soon after we got back, Chris, Vanessa, Singer, and I headed out again with Paul, one of the other students at the Residencia. We were planning on going to one of the volcanic sites on the island, and having a barbeque dinner there. This was my first excursion into the island interior, and I was excited to get out of Angra and see what else was out there.

The interior of the island is the most lush place I have ever seen. There aren't any houses there (most people live on the coast)...most of the land is used for agriculture and livestock. So there was basically miles of isolated green everywhere.

The first place we went to was a site where three tectonic plates - the African, American, and Eurasian - met. There were many sulfur vents active in the area, and a haze covered everything. It was pretty amazing (as was every other place we went to in the past few hours)...I'll put pictures up from it soon.

Then we went into a swamp-like area to grill and eat. not much to say here...the food and scenery were good.

Afterwards we climbed into the crater of a volcano, which had been overgrown completely by greenery. Like I said, I have never seen that much green in one place...it was pretty beautiful. Also all the volcanoes on the island are still active. good times.

On the way back, we passed by the American Base...and found out that apparently our government issued ID's (passports, drivers licenses, etc) are good enough to get us into the base. This is not what we heard before, so we'll be looking into that to see if we can get in. We did see american apartments, american cars, and american stores on the other side of the (heavily guarded) fence, which I think made everyone miss home a little bit.

It's kind of frustrating that it's impossible to capture what you're seeing on camera. The pictures and videos of natural scapes that I take on this island are small sections of what is out there...it's impossible to capture the breadth of the view and the feelings they inspire. Not for a lack of trying though.

Surgery

Today I was in surgery. I woke up at 8 (the earliest I've woken up since December), because they started their procedures at 8:30.

There really isn't much to say about the procedures themselves; the protocols and methods are exactly the same as in the surgeries I've observed in the States. Some of the same surgeries too.

Vanessa and I was talking to one of the surgery nurses in the scrub room before going into the operating rooms about how crowded the emergency rooms (which I had been in numerous times in the past three week) were. Dr. Claudio had mentioned to me on my first day there that there was a severe problem here in which people could come to the emergency room for things that could easily be attended to by the family doctor; coming to the emergency rooms for things such as allergy medications, missed periods, colds, or even to get a prescription filled may be quicker, but its a huge drain on hospital resources and manpower..it hampers access to emergency care to those who actually need it. Apparently this is a problem in the States as well; Chris told me a few weeks ago that there was a hospital in LA that had to be shut down because of the very reason...so many people came into the ER for mundane things that the hospital was pouring all of its money into that department, and went bankrupt. I guess we need to use our judgement in deciding whether or not a problem warrants and ER visit or whether you should just call Raleigh Pediatrics (as I would do in my case. also I'm not sure why i still see a pediatrician). Do I smell a tirade on decision making in medical settings coming up? no, thats just my laundry. I'm tired right now...don't have too much energy to think.

why? because I spent the day cooking. i think i really like it...there's something really therapeutic about the whole process. also your largest problem in the kitchen (provided you don't set something on fire) is whether or not you put too much basil in the pasta sauce (answer is always no).

that's it for now

Neurology and more Bulls

Dang. its been a while.

Today was pretty short. I shadowed a neurologist. This man was old, very old, but very good. His English was average; he repeated himself many times over to make sure I understood what he was saying. For the most part it was alright though; I understood him well enough. He took me around to his patients, and told me about their cases. He wasn't really performing any procedures, so he didn't have much to show me. He did tell me about the Americans though; he was going to be discharging them. Having spent a lot of time with the American and his wife over the past week through visits, I knew that they were both anxious to get home, to familiar places. It's a pity that they had to come to this beautiful of an island under such circumstances; the lady said at the end that she couldn't wait to go back home, and that most likely she would not be visiting Europe again. She might have been caught up in the moment, but in her shoes I might have said that same.

After showing me some CT scans of the patient, the neurologist ran out of things to do; he mostly have meetings and paperwork for the rest of the day. I came home soon after lunch, and did work at the residencia before heading out later that afternoon to Joao's mother's place to watch a tourada.

This one was even more exciting than the last two; so of course i left my camera at home. The bulls in this one were crazy...I decided not to get on the street, because they were a lot quicker than I was used to, and I had skinned my knee scrambling up a wall during the last one and didn't trust my ability to run fast. We watched from behind the safety of a very high wall. There were two teenagers in who were particularly good at running; they would run around the bull to make it chase them, then with a hand on the bull's head, keep running until a) they got hit or b) the bull gave up or c) they climbed a wall. Everyone on the street was cheering them on; they were something like mini-celebrities.

The touradas get more exciting every time. I've started to recognize some of the same people that come to the touradas, and have made friends with a couple of them. One man, who lived for many years in New Jersey, offered to take us up to the mountains in a few days where the bulls live to see them in their natural habitat and in their training. Exciting.

Gastrology Day 2

Today I went to gastrology again with Chris. Instead of endoscopies, the unit was doing only colonoscopies. I saw 3 of these procedures, which was more than enough for me to decide that I never want to be gastrologist. I'll spare the details.

After the procedures, Chris and I talked to Fernando for a while. After giving us a fairly extensive tour of the colonoscopy room, we started talking about treatment choices. Fernando mentioned that in some cases, colonoscopy treatments are forgone even when they may be beneficial. As an example, as people age, they sometimes get diverticulums, which are pouches formed in the large intestine by stools that sit there for extended periods of time. Over time, these turn into actual pockets. If an endoscopic tube enters one of these pouches, they can rupture, releasing the contents of the large intestine into the peritoneum, leading to high chances of infection and death. In those cases, it is pretty obvious that a colonoscopy would be risky. However, Fernando also mentioned that if the patient is old and probably close to death, why treat him/her, and risk complications and death? I didn't know how to feel about this, because I got the impression that if a procedure was necessary, it would not be performed because of the possibility of failure. On the surface of course, I understand the reasoning; if the risks outweigh the benefits, there is good reason not to do a procedure. The ultimate call would be up to the physician, but it seems like a subjective decision to me; you really can't be sure about the probability of failure beforehand, can you? All you can do is guess, and is that worth someone's life?

Gastrology

Yesterday was the start of my first full week at the hospital. We got there around 9:30 AM and met up with Claudio. He was a little rushed, because apparently he had an emergency with one of his patients. But he took some time to tell us to get our ID badges made, and then dropped us off at each of our departments. Because I had shadowed Claudio for a few days last week already, I decided to go to a new department this week, and picked the Gastrology, as did Chris. We both walked down to the second floor and introduced ourselves to the department nurses. They were really nice; I was struck by how close knit of a unit they were. Everyone seemed to be really friendly with each other. The main person in that department in "charge" of us was a male nurse name Fernando. His english was pretty good, and he was very talkative. He had been a nurse for 15 years or so, so he was pretty well informed about the healthcare system in Portugal and Europe in general. More importantly, he was willing to answer any questions we had. Because Chris is also a nursing student, him and Fernando talked a lot about practices, etc.

The Gastrology department does mainly Endoscopies and Colonoscopies. Yesterday there were no colonoscopies scheduled, so all we would see were endoscopies. Fernando informed us that in Portgual, people didn't really use anesthesia for procedures (unlike in the United States, where they knock you out for pretty much anything). This included dentists, (some) operations, and nearly everything the did in the Gastrology department. The reasoning was that 1) anesthesia cost a lot of money and 2) the patient would be pretty much useless for a few hours after regaining conciousness. Even though most people didn't mind not getting anesthesia and were used to it, if the patient really couldn't tolerate the procedure, they could request it.

Anyway, we saw 3 endoscopy procedures, all sans anesthesia. Also one of them was a 90 year old woman. I'm guessing this has something to do with the machismo culture here (see: bullfights) . For those that don't know, during an endoscopy the nurses stick a camera down your esophagus into your stomach, and can go until the duodenum. It's used mostly as a diagnostic tool, to see what's going on down there. One of the patients needed a tissue biopsy from her pyloric sphincter (the spinchter separating the esophagus from the stomach), so the doctor used a claw-like appendage to grab several chunks of tissue for analysis. After the procedures, Fernando talked with us some more about healthcare practices, giving us a tour of the department and whatnot. (btw, colonoscopy tubes are terrifyingly large)

During our conversation, he mentioned that a bed at the hospital here would be around 150 euros a night. That's about $200. That's a LOT cheaper than in the US. I told Fernando that, and he said that that was because the insurance companies here did not play as big as a role in deciding healthcare options as they did in the States. However, he said that Portugal was trying to copy the US system (can't imagine why...), so healthcare was getting more and more expensive.

As mentioned before, the whole Gastrology department seemed really close knit and friendly. As I had seen in other areas of the hospital so far, the amount of time that these doctors spent with their patients was large, way more than in the US. Also, they are VERY good at what they do. I'd be hard pressed to find a more efficient and effective department anywhere else.

After we got out of the hospital, Aisha and I walked with Vanessa up to the University of the Azores so Vanessa could pay her housing deposit. It's starting to warm up, and the days are becoming warm and sunny...the island is becoming even more of a paradise. We took the scenic route to the University, along the cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Afterwards, we came back to the Residencia and hung out for a little bit and did some work (I finally got started on those med school apps. word.). Later we went out to dinner, to the same place we went our second day here. The waiter remembered us, although I guess it's kind of hard to forget a group of 10 obvious tourists.

After dinner, a few of us went to the beach (about a 5 minute walk from the Residencia) and watched the sunset.

Overall, a pretty good day I'd say.

Tourada!

Yesterday we went to a tourada , which is a running of the bulls. I had only seen videos of these things on youtube before, and usually they ended up with someone getting hurt (which was probably the reason they were on youtube), so I was excited to see one in real life. The tourada started at the beginning of May, and will throughout the summer in different locations around the island. This particular one was in São Mateus, a city about 4 km away from Angra. One (terrifyingly fast) taxi ride later, we were there. The taxi driver dropped us off in a neighborhood, and we walked about a block before we saw the crowds and food stalls. It felt like a giant social event, where people from surrounding towns would gather, much like a local fair. Except with bulls.

In a tourada, bulls are essentially let loose in a street. The audience lines the streets behind the relative safety of walls, while the professional handlers and Azoreans taunt the bull. The bull is actually held back by a thick rope, which is controlled by a group of four handlers. Most of the time though, they let the bull run free, and only used the rope when the bull went too far off course. The locals would also get in the street and play with (but mostly run from) the bull. Because you can't always see the bull (because it might be around the corner), the handlers set off one firework when the bull was out of the pen, and two when it's back in. You had to be on your guard once the bull was released.

One firecracker went off. The bull was out. I stood on a knee-height wall with the other Atlantis Project folk, and waited to see what would happen. It took about 3 minutes for the bull to round the bend in the road. It was bigger than I had expected. And faster. You could always tell when the bull was coming your way, because there would be a handful of young men sprinting out in front of it. Everyone was yelling/hitting the bull as it came by. The first few times, I'll admit that I was scared that the bull would jump the wall, and make all our lives tough for the next few weeks, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

There were three bulls in all, released one at a time. By the third bull, I was felt like I knew enough of what was going on to venture out into the street. I joined a group of Azoreans and started walking up the hill towards it. Every few feet I would look to my side to make sure that there was a wall to climb in case I had to make a quick exit. The bull rounded the corner. This was the biggest yet, and seemed really (really really) angry. It was zig-zagging from one side of the street to the other, slamming into the walls on either side. This didn't stop any of the people in the street however, so I figured I had a good chance. I would try to get as close to the bull as possible without it charging at me. The trouble was, bulls are unexpectedly quick; they can go from walking to full out sprint in a second. As I got closer to the bull, my walk slowed to a creep, and my muscles tightened; if the bull made the slightest indication of being ready to charge, I was planning on getting out of the way quickly. I think the closest I got was about 25 feet away; close enough to hear it panting and hear its saliva flying from its mouth. I had started moving towards the nearest scalable wall when the bull charged, thankfully away from my side of the street. I was unable to make it all the way up the wall (it was quite tall), but hung on for a few seconds while the bull passed, after which I dropped back on the street. A few minutes later, they brought the bull back in; the tourada was over.

What a rush.

First Day of Work

Today was the first day of my internship at the Hospital de Santo Espirito de Angra do Heroismo. I was shadowing Dr. Claudio Olivero. Easily one of the most fun people I've met. His English is flawless; he did his undergrad at McMaster University in Canada, but he must have lived there longer than that. Anyway, when we got there at 9 am (got up in time this morning, holla), he sat us all down and basically gave us a rundown of what was going to happen. In a nutshell, he said that he was really supportive of the idea of us coming in and shadowing different departments and whatnot, and was really glad that we were here. Apparently there was a large departmental conference going on between several departments in the hospital, so a lot of those departments were severely understaffed. Dr. Claudio was picking up the slack, which meant he was assigned about 50 different things to do at any given moment.

He showed us around the hospital for a little bit, and then told us that only two people could be with him at a time while he did rounds in the emergency ward. Unfortunately, there were 7 of us there, so we had some decision making to do. Eventually we decided that Aisha would go with Dr. Claudio's friend in the pediatric unit, and a few other people and I would head back to the Residencia while two other people stayed. After a few hours, we would switch. I came back to the Residencia and did pretty much nothing until about 2, when the people who had shadowed in the morning came back. Nicole and I then went back to the Hospital and found Dr. Claudio still doing rounds.

Dr. Claudio had told us to watch out for "the haters," which were other doctors/nurses in the hospital who did not want undergrad there. I think this is something at every hospital; the places I have shadowed in the States have all had nurses and other administrators who give me the evil eye/get haughty when I or my mentor comes by. I can understand some part of this; in a lot of cases, untrained people in a hectic medical scene can get in the way...that has definitely happened to me more than once. On the other hand, how else is someone supposed to get experience? It's not as if you learn something more between when you're an undergrad/high schooler and when you're a first or second year med student. You could argue you learn a lot about ethics and whatnot, but which part of that isn't common sense? At its core, you're just talking to people.

I'm really impressed with how good of a doctor Dr. Claudio is. He told us from the beginning that he was overstretched today, because he was covering what seemed like 50 departments at once. Nevertheless, he took his time with every single one of his patients, and talked to us to great extent about ancillary things. Apparently his mother is really into Hinduism, and Claudio really wants to marry a traditional Indian girl, not one that will "drag her sari through the market" (whatever that means). We talked a lot about this, but he never forgot about this patients. He seemed to genuinely care about them.

After a few more hours of seeing patients, it was time to go.

Can't wait to go back.

I woke up at 2 today. I had forgotten to bring an alarm clock, so I had been depending on my roommate (who I hadn't met yet...more on that in a bit) to wake me up with his alarm. But for some reason he set his for 2 instead of 9. I was still laying on my bed in the hazy purgatory between sleep and consciousness when I got a knock at my door. It was Erin, telling me that they were about to go out around the city. Up to this point I still thought it was 9 am, so I was feeling good about heading out so early. It was only when Erian told me it was actually 2:15 that I realized how much of the day had gone by. I brushed my teeth quickly, and as I finished, my roommate came back in the room.

My roommate is name Rui. The R is guttural, like you would say it in French. I had not seen him yet, because he would wake up and leave really early in the morning and come back around 3 am, when I was asleep. So even though we had slept inches from eachother for two nights, I did not know what he looked like, or what kind of a person he was. I won't lie, I was a little apprehensive about meeting him...I think I automatically assume that people who I don't know are assholes. I don't know why I would think that, given that literally EVERYONE on this island is really nice. Anyway, I walked out of the bathroom and Rui was standing there. This was our conversation:

Rui: "HELLO GOODMORNING"

Me (thrown off by how much enthusiasm he used): "HI"

Rui: "let me know if you need any help with the kitchen"

Me: "...ok i will"

Rui: "or anything else really. I can help you out. Sorry my English is so bad"

Me: "hey man, your english is a lot better than my portuguese"

Rui: "haha"

Me: "hahah"

Rui: "ok I will go back downstairs, see you around"

Me: "ok bye"

Turns out he is studying at the university to be a nature guide. I'd say he's my age (like almost everyone else at this Residencia). Also I have the same pants as he does. word.

After meeting up with everyone downstairs, we headed out into the city, in search of a supermarket that apparently "put Walmart to shame" (according to Nico, one of the fellows from last year). On the way there we came across a cemetery in the middle of the city. I have never seen so many graves packed into so small a space. There were enormous Mausoleums and extremely intricate gravestones throughout the area. We walked around and admired them for a little bit, and then ran into one of the workers at the cemetery, named Moses (pronouced Moy-sees). We asked him if he knew English, and he said "A little." And by "A little" he meant "im fluent"...his English was near perfect. He had lived for a few years in California, and he had family there...his english had a mexican accent to it. Anyway, he was really talkative/nice. He explained to us how they bury the dead. Apparently they dig down two meters into the ground, and bury someone. Then they bury someone else in the same plot (usually from the same family). After 9 years, they dig the bones back up and put them in a box and put it on top of the grave, and put another person (or two) in the grave. This way, they can conserve space...there's not a lot of it in the cemetery. After that, he told us about the festival that's coming up in a few weeks, and invited us over to his house for food during the festival. I'll explain what the festival is about in a later post, but suffice to say that I can't wait for it to happen.

We pressed on to the store, where I bought soap, a notebook, and some COOKIES. not much to say about this place, except it looked eerily similar to Target.

We then walked back to the Residencia to drop off all the things we had bought, and then Nicole, Aisha, Erin, and I walked to the phone store to buy phones. I was buying a phone partly to stay in touch with the other members of the group/my parents, and partly because i really needed an alarm, as this morning had showed. The phone was actually pretty cheap (about 19 euros for the phone and the plan), so it wasn't that bad. They were selling the iphone 4 for 140 Euros (about 200 dollars), so I was really tempted to buy one. But I resisted and decided to stick with my throwback, 1999-esque phone.

After coming back to the Residencia, we chilled for a little bit while Laura R. flew in from Lisbon, and then we went to dinner...at a chinese restaurant. run by chinese people. This was the last place I was expecting chinese people to be, way out in a small island in the middle of the atlantic ocean. Whatever though, the food was good. we went to eat ice cream afterwards, and came back to the Residencia.

It's kind of funny how everyone we've talked to has said that they speak "a little bit of English," but most of these people are really good at it, if not fluent; the taxi driver who took us from the airport to our Residencia on our first day here sounded like he was from Texas. I think people are just scared of us judging them if they dont speak it correctly, so they leave themselves a buffer zone by saying that they only speak a little. This is funny to me, seeing as how most of us don't speak any portuguese at all in a portuguese country, so who are we to judge?

First Day

We did a lot of walking today.

This morning we met a man named Hugo (pronounced "oogu"), who lives in the Residencia with us. He took us to the university to pay our housing deposits/rent. This was around a 30 minute walk, but it didn't matter because the city around us was so beautiful. Hugo is one of the coolest people I've met here so far. He's from Madiera, another island in the Azores, but he's in Terceira to study Nursing. His English is really good, so he told us a lot about the island and Azorean culture. After paying our deposits, Hugo took the scenic route home ('scenic route' actually applies to any route in this city i think), that took us past the bay. It seems that the Portuguese built the city right up to the edge of the cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Afterwards, we went to a cafe for dinner. I think my food cycle is still on American time, because I get REALLY hungry at 4 pm local time (noon US time). Oh well, the food's good enough to be eating 24/7 (I know someone who wouldn't have a problem with that at all...). I had been having issues with getting my credit card to work, but all that got fixed. word. Also around this time my camera ran out of batteries, which wasn't a good thing because I missed out on some excellent photo-ops. oh well, i have 6 more weeks.

Then we came back to the Residencia, and chilled for a little bit before heading out again. Originally we just wanted to see the Hospital (where me and everyone else but Laura, other Laura, and Singer would be working), but that turned into EXCITING ADVENTURES. we walked into an area of the city we hadn't been before (I wonder where the ghetto of this city is...probably isn't one). We came across a giant statue of three bulls. The running of the bulls is a big deal in this city. It'll happen in a few weeks; I can't wait. Anyway, after taking a lot of pictures with the (admittedly well-endowed) bulls, we pressed on. We came across a bakery, where I had the best pastry of my life. It was chocolate, and...ok I can't describe it. But it was good, and now I'm full.

We walked to the pier, and talked to a pair of swiss sailors who were stopping over in the Azores for the night. I kid you not, they were sailing on the Black Pearl. I think they were kind of mad at us though because were staring at their ship/home for 20 minutes.

I think what has taken me aback the most here so far is how nice the people are. Everyone here is willing to help us out. I'm kind of embarrassed to be visiting their country and forcing everyone I talk to speak English instead of Portuguese, but everyone is so patient with our broken Portuguese/sign language.

Arrival

So I'm in Terciera Island right now, my destination. I would write about stuff that happened before my flight yesterday but honestly I don't remember, so I'm not going to do that

I flew from RDU to Boston, and then from Boston to Ponta Delgada, another island in the archipelago...there was a layover there before flying to Terciera Island. This last flight was interesting for several reasons.

1) the guy sitting next to me smelled awful, a mix of tobacco, sweat, and alcohol. he boarded, sat down, and immediately went to sleep. I spent the first half of the 5 hour flight trying not to throw up (from the smell), and then I realized this guy had been throwing up regularly for the past 2 hours. Seriously, this was the quietest, most polite throwing up ever...I just thought he was coughing from time to time but by the time I realized what was going on he was ON HIS THIRD BAG. the flight attendant then came by and moved him closer to the bathroom so he could use it if he needed. We saw him later when we got off at the airport, he had some paramedics helping him out, so he was probably really sick.

2) the woman sitting across from me on the plane was WAY too interested in what I was doing. When I got my food (more on that in a bit), she literally leaned over the aisle to see what I had. it was the same as what she had mind you. I would then look up periodically and she would be looking at me. during eating. during the movie. when i shifted in the seat. WHILE I WAS SLEEPING. waking up to her STARING INTO YOUR SOUL was an intense experience.

3) when i booked my flight a few months ago, i selected the vegetarian meal. I don't eat beef and since the Azores has a massive population of cows, i didnt want to risk getting that (I was right by the way, it was beef). my meal was: steamed rice with steamed cauliflower. what. salad (with too much salad dressing), butter (with nothing to use the butter on), some fruit and a shot of water. the rice didnt taste like anything so i added two packets of salt, which was better, and then i added the rest of my salad dressing to it, which was a mistake. I had just eaten before boarding though so it was all good.

4) 8 hour layover in Ponta Delgada. Me and Chris went on a WALKING ADVENTURE around Ponta. I love this place. the weather is awesome...kind of warm, but the breeze from the atlantic ocean (about 2000 feet away from the airport) is constant and cools everything down. Then i realized i hadnt slept in over 24 hours and knocked out on sheet metal seats and now my shoulders hurt

We finally got to Terciera island around 4 PM local time (=12 PM EST) and spent the rest of the day exploring the neighborhood surrounding our home base. We're staying at a Residencia, which is kind of like the dorms that the students at the University of the Azores use. It's straight up a castle. I'm sitting in the common room right now and it looks like something you'd find in GRIFFYNDOR HOUSE.

This place is beautiful. Same weather as Ponta, but we're staying in a more populated area so its pretty nice. Pictures/Videos later, three hours sleep in two days is catching up to me.

Almost Time

T minus 20 hours until I leave for the Azores

The fact that I am using that method of counting instead of simply saying '9 hours till I leave' signifies that something pretty important is going to happen; most people have heard this in the context of shuttle launches, which let's be real, is a pretty important event.

Somehow I don't feel like I'm giving this the gravitas that "T minus" deserves. It hasn't really set in that I'm leaving for another country, another culture. In my mind, the Azores are "just outside of Charlotte."

This is going to be the first place I have gone overseas that isn't India. I'm thoroughly used to India. I am thoroughly used to the United States. Anywhere else? I have no anchors.

Bring it.

I don't know where my socks are.