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.