Soaking it up in Spain

In my Art History class this week my professor took us to visit the Santa Maria del Pi church, The Cathedral, and the Ajuntament de Barcelona. He gave us a guided tour of all three sites, including the Ajuntament, which tourists are not normally taken into! Because he has an "amigo mio" that works at the Ajuntament, we got to visit rooms that are closed to the public! This building was GORGEOUS. I am SO thankful I got to see the inside of it with my professor telling us its history in such great detail. The history behind this city and its monuments is unbelievably remarkable.

Earlier this week I got to perform an audiogram (hearing test) on a patient at my internship. It was so awesome! This man was extremely deaf, and I learned a lot about his deficiency and its treatment. One of the greatest things about it was that I got to interact with him, along with Chavy, to explain his disorder and current treatment for about an hour. This was by far the worst case I had witnessed since I started my internship. I won't bore you with the detailed description of it, not only because you might not be interested, but also because you might not understand it. To sum it up, I walked out of the office with an enormous smile on my face.

Thursday I had to give a presentation in my Practica class for 10 minutes, in Spanish, on whatever topic I wanted. I chose to talk about how we hear, hearing losses, and what an audiologist is/does. The night before my presentation, I looked up all the medical terminology I needed in order to sufficiently explain the hearing process, wrote out what I was going to say, and drew a mini-diagram in my notes to use as a guide for my presentation. My presentation went alright, not the best though. However I feel that I underestimate my performance because my professor and fellow students told me I did great. Basically I taught the class about the ear and how we hear and drew a diagram with labels on the chalkboard. Unfortunately I was nowhere prepared for what followed my presentation.

Apparently everyone in my class was REALLY interested in what I was talking about and almost everyone, including my professor, started asking me questions about their ears, their friends ears, their family's ears, why it hurts so bad to go in an airplane or descend deep in water, if it is healthy to do this and that, what happens when this occurs, etc... I was in no way prepared to answer these questions IN SPANISH, so it was difficult, but my professor and a girl in my class from Mexico did their best to to help me translate my answers from English into Spanish. It was a struggle because I can explain the answers to their questions in English, but not in Spanish because I do not possess the proper medical vocabulary in Spanish. I resorted to saying things like "Tubo de Eustachian," but my professor and the students were understanding and did their best to help me out. They were so unbelievably nice and attentive during the presentation, and afterwards, during their "Let's ask the ear-freak Nicole 20 questions about the ear" session. Overall it was a great experience, especially because I plan to use my Spanish with future patients, and for this reason need to learn how to explain the hearing process in Spanish. It was a great first step into learning how to speak in medical terms about the ears...well, I guess a second step because I do that in the audiology office I intern at, but whatever, I think you all get the point.

Yesterday the GSE group had our last day trip to Figueres to visit the Dali Museum, and then to Girona for a short city tour. I LOVE DALI! That museum was UNREAL. I spent some quality up-close-and-personal time with his paintings, drawings, and creations. He is such a freak, and his work is out of this world. His mind worked in ways that I can't even begin fathom, even at the most elementary levels. Salvador Dali was such a gifted man, and has left an exceptional impression on the world, through his art.

Girona was fabulous. It is a small, quaint, beautiful city full of character with the Onyar River running though it. It has a very Italian vibe to it. The weather for our trip was definitely not the best (rainy, cloudy, thunderstorm/lightening) for a walking tour of the city, but we made the best of it and spent a lot of time in the Cathedral until the rain let up. The Cathedral has the second largest nave (the largest is St. Peter's) and is home to the Tapís de la Creació, a large tapestry depicting the creation of the world, months of the year, and various Biblical images and characters. Visiting cathedrals like the one in Girona is such a magnificent experience because I am seeing, in person, the art and architecture I am learning about in my Art History class- it is such an indescribable experience. However I personally enjoyed the stormy weather on the ride home through a lush green landscape.

Earlier this week, in Barcelona, it HAILED! The weather has been so on and off lately, and it reminds me a lot of Santa Barbara in that sense, because it will be a complete downpour with hail and thunder for 20 minutes, or so, and then before you know it the clouds have parted and the sun is shining. Then, the clouds will resume their position and the sky gets gray and the rain starts to fall again, but then it will let up later in the day. It is wild, but the rain is a blessing for Spain because they are experiencing an awful drought, and without it their summer will be unbearable.

After exiting the bus at Plaza Catalunya, Sarah, Lauren, Emily S., and I traversed a beautiful part of the city to visit a Columbian bread shop near Sagrada Familia. We thoroughly enjoyed our springtime walk through newly discovered streets filled with blooming trees under the setting sun. Springtime in Barcelona is the best. The bright colors really bring out the city's character and beauty, and augment my love for it more and more every day. I will miss this place so much and I can hardly believe I only have three more weeks left.

At the Columbian bread shop I got this delicious pastry that I will try my best to describe. It was the size of a baseball, covered with a thick, soft, yellow bread, almost like a tortilla, and was filled with rice and chicken. It was really yummy and its taste resembled Mexican food. The bakery had a lot of really appealing treats like a soft bread filled with a sort of Guava jam, among other things, but as we know, I am on a tight budget these days, so my chicken and rice baseball was sufficient.

After eating at the bakery it was already 9pm, so we walked Emily to her apartment that basically overlooks Sagrada and made plans to meet up later in the night. After a quick rinse and change of clothes, I met up with the girls to go to a bar called Pippermint. The bar itself wasn't the best (please note here that I am a grandma), but the walk trying to find it was! After we left the smoke-filled bar I stayed the night at Lauren and Sarah's apartment so that I would not have to get a cab home by myself, and because we were on the other side of town in relation to my apartment.

Today the weather is gorgeous- the sun is shining, the sky is clear, and the air is fresh. I find myself in a great dilemma because I have quite a hefty load of homework to complete for Monday, in addition to studying for my finals. Eek. I think I'll bite my lip and get it done today so that I can guiltlessly enjoy tomorrow and my last weeks coming.