Friday

I slept in a bit and met Ted at the hotel where he was working at a conference which focused mostly on AIDS and related diseases. The hotel is called Fiesta Americana and is VERY nice. It´s across the street from the Hyatt. So with Paulina´s hand-drawn map I was able to learn another bus route!

It was almost comical how similar this conference was to the ones I´ve been to in the states. At a very nice hotel. The set up. The Powerpoint. The people who get up and walk out. The water table in the back. For Dr Webb and my lab friends: just think Autumn Immuno Conference and you´re there! I listened to two, one hour talks and understood about %30! About the same as at a conference in Chicago! It was an interesting experience. Then I just sat in the lobby of the hotel with Ted and we talked for a couple of hours. It was so nice to speak English and to have a conversation where I was able to go a little deeper than my spanish allows. It was good for Ted because he was getting bored. He works for a travel agency and he was just there if anyone needed anything but they didn´t. So he was just sitting all day. It´s funny though because he said that the doctors need everything spelled out for them. He said one has asked him a question which was clearly explained in the registration packet. He laughed when I told him that doctors were the same all over the world. More on this later.

Ted and I ate at Burger King and then I went home where later Pau and I met the boys and went to hang out. We went to a Pastor place. This refers to the method of cooking the meat, which is usually pork. So good! We ate some great food and watched a soccer game on tv. Many restaurants here are open on three sides- it´s a great atmosphere.

Saturday

So Pau went with me to the hospital where we were supposed to meet her prof, the doctor, at 9am. Let´s just say that at 10 we were still waiting. Pau asked someone (probably for the 4th time) if he was coming, and finally at 10 they said probably not. Pau said: welcome to Mexico. And I said: no, welcome to medicine- doctors are doctors all over the world! Oh well. We still had a productive time because Pau took me down the street to the new medical library- open to the public. Full of scientific journals in english. Full of new computers which are supposed to be only for research but which are obviously used for the internet as we saw many people doing so. Sweet. I thought free internet would be available at the other library but you have to have a password. At this library, it´s really true. And there´s very cold air conditioning. I´ll probably actually take a jacket! But i´m not complaining.

On the way home I took some pictures of the beautiful trees which are in bloom right now. Ahh Mexico. And tonight, we´re going to a Latin Jazz concert downtown for $1.50 and afterwards there´s music and dancing in the "town square" until 2am! This is the life!