nearing the end

last weekend, the other american that was here in ilha finished his internship. there was a big goodbye churrasco (bbq) at his place on saturday. there were about 30 people and food and beer for all. daniel and i made cheddar bacon cheeseburgers, and daniel also made bbq sauce to top em off. id say they were a hit... of course, we made them obnoxiously big and garnished them with onions fried in the left over bacon fat.

one guy at the bbq asked, "ou david, can you teach me how to make hamburgers?" so i showed him the hand motions required to form a patty. :-) it reminded me of my roommate asking me to flip his egg for him. or the astonishment on my roommates faces when i told them i knew how to make brownies. yea...not much culinary or gastronomic tradition here. the best thing goin here culinarily speaking is the fish! very fresh fish. and a lot of variety (similar to the fruit scene here). it comes just about any way you want it: fried, baked, raw, grilled. mmmmmmmm. this raises further questions, however, as to why nearly every meal at my house is based on beef. this fish is just begging (might i say, "dying"?) to make it into the republica pulero* diet!!! but not once have i eaten fish here at the republica.
*a republica is a group of friends who get together to rent a house.....republica pulereo is the name of my republica

so there are a whole lot of foreigners here these days. maybe 10 students doing internships through IAESTE, and an additional constituency of foreign students studying here at UNESP. however, i havent met most of them because ive been spending my time with brazilians.

i was sick most of last week, but i made it to work every day. i went to the hospital on thrusday for a free consultation. the doctor gave me one of the most powerful antibiotics available (for a sore throat and achiness, mind you). wikipedia says it's used for severe, life-threatening infections and infections that are resistant to other antibiotics. he also gave me this nice drug coctail of consisting of an anti-piretic, an analgesic, and some others goodies. that got rid of my sore throat and achiness quite nicely.

just two more weeks of internship left. then ill been heading home!

also, i now know my next destination! i will be leaving for Germany on sept 10 to do a three-month internship in Berlin! the position is at a biomedical engineering company called Biotronik. one of my best friends from RIT, Nick, is currently interning at the same company (he was the connection that set me up with the position...thanks, nick). i will be splitting an apartment with him until november, when we will both be returning to the states....nov 21.

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