For Barrie

I've been meaning to post my last bit of Peru, but alas Vascular Surgery at the VA has completely taken over my life for the past month. Luckily it is over and now I am on to ENT for 2 weeks and the Urology for another 2 weeks. Pretty excited about Urology as right now I'm between Urology and OB/GYN. But let's be real, we all know I'll end up as an OB/GYN.

Back to Lima:

Despite my begging and pleading and my sister's secretary trying to get me on a flight back home, all the flights were booked and I was stuck in Lima for a day and a half...a tragedy, I know. Luckily I booked a decent hostel and took a cab out to Miraflores, which is a beachy town on the outskirts of Lima. I got in when it was dark, so I snuggled up in bed and did a lot of FaceTime-ing with family and friends and then slept a solid 14 hours. It was bliss. I literally forced myself out of bed by 11 am and set out for a day of exploration. I did a lot of walking and shopping and eating, surprise. I headed over to a delightful sandwich shop called Hot and Cold recommended by Lonely Planet. Usually I'm not all that impressed when a place is recommended, but I loved this sandwich and the customer service was awesome. I even got to mark a pin on their world map for visitors. And they spoke English, which is always helpful. I took my sandwich to the beach and watch hanggliders jump off cliffs. I can't tell you how glad I was to be eating and not jumping off cliffs. I then headed over to LarcoMar, which is basically a shopping mall on a Cliff. I wasn't quite sure why this place was recommended but I went with it. And happily shopped. I went to another restaurant for dessert and coffee overlooking the ocean, but unfortunately the power went out and they weren't able to heat anything...oh South America.

So I picked myself up and headed up through the main square and window shopped and stopped in for a real dessert and cappuccino. It was very quaint and I read my novel for a bit. Then I headed up to this market and shopped/bartered for a solid 3 hours. I was very happy and I bought a lot of stuff... alpaca blankets and scarves and god knows what else. Before I knew it, it was getting dark (aka hiding time) and I headed home ready to get showered and treat myself to a wonderful meal at some super expensive place that was recommended in my guidebook. I showered with real shampoo and conditioner and basked in the hot water. I even got all dressed up and put on makeup. And then my sister called and I got in bed and we were chatting and before I knew it there was no way I was leaving my bed since I would be waking up at 3 am and it was well past 9pm. What can I say.

The rest of my flights were pretty uneventful. I met a number of young travelers per usual and had some interesting conversations. I was headed to Colombia for my layover and I was quite impressed with the number of solo male American and Parisian travelers who were going there to backpack. I guess things are different if you are a male, or maybe just someone not raised to hold mace up whenever walking alone(Okay my mom did not actually teach me this, but somehow it has become a habit at night.)

Weeks later, I'm not entirely sure of the details of my flight, but I can imagine it involved sleeping which is why I cannot remember it. All I know is that when I arrived in Miami 15 hours later, I was greeted my little Bauer and my mom. We stopped off to see my sister at work and then headed home for dinner (something delicious and healthy and not greasy prepared by my loving mother.) My sister was in the process of obsessively buying a new car, so I decided to sacrifice sleep and go with her to the dealership with my dad and her to buy her new car. It was well worth the 3 hours of sleep I got since I had to be awake by 730 am for orientation in Gainesville (4 hours away) the next morning.

I laughed a lot. In case anyone is unaware, my father drives his younger brother's beat up 92 Honda Accord. For some reason, he has yet to fix the handledoor that has fallen off his driver's door, the multiple dents in the car, the peeling leather seats, the speedometer that stopped working at mile 80,000, etc. He was trading in his car and getting my sister's Camry (his previous car, another creampuff). So based on the vehicles we drove in with, the creampuff we were trading in, the dealership obviously assumed we were a bunch of homeless people. Which worked for awhile until they started asking us what we all did, and out came the lawyers and doctors and the fact that my father just truly enjoys driving beat-up cars. My sister and I could not stop laughing, we've grown up with our parents and realize how absurd they are.

Anyways, my sister drove off with her brand new Acura SUV, as the dealership watched my 59 yo father get in his old creampuff back (which is about 20x nicer than his previous creampuff and about 50x junkier than my sister's new car.) Thanks mom and dad for always sacrificing the world for Alexis and I. We do appreciate your oddness.

Traveling back to Florida

I am currently trying to catch my flight to lima. It was supposed to leave at 940 am but weather apparently backed it up to 12:50. Luckily i love airports!
I got back to cusco last night at about 1030 and said my goodbyes to mg new friends and walked myself back to kim's apartment. When i knocked on the front door (which enters into a courtyard where the apartments all open up to) Danka, the cute dog, welcomed me. Gosh i love dogs! I packed up my backpack (full of dirty clothes) and showered (2nd best shower of my life) and then was silly and headed out with kim for a farewell beer. We met up with some of her peruvian friends, which was fun! I stayed out way to late and slept oh so well in a bed. I woke up at 730 to catch a taxi which i only paid 10 soles for (about $3 vs my $8 into the city taxi). I always feel so accomplished leaving a city as not a complete "gringa"/"farang". The taxi driver tried for 17 soles but oh no i am a master traveler who will not be overcharged! I totally wish i could just travel around for a while longer but unfortunately school is a calling. I checked in very easily at the airport and settled into my last pasty for breakfast (at least i hope this does continue on when i get home!) and a coffee. With my wifi and my food i was a happy little traveler. As soon as I realized my flight was delayed I ran into another girl from my class (Amirah) who was traveling peru for a week . We had been trying to meet up but it was a little too complicated since she was here less time and i was gone for 5 days! I must say it is very nice to see people you know when traveling alone! And so here I sit waiting for my flight to lima and hoping my wonderful sister (well her spanish speaking secretary) manages to get my flight to miami. And now on to "Love in the time of cholera". Cant wait to see everyone, hope everyone's boards went well if I did not have time to wish you well! Once again, sorry for spelling errors. I have no patience for my iphone, computers have made me horrible at spelling, and my spellcheck currently is checking in espanol. Adios!

Last stretch (days 4 and 5)

The last day of hiking was rather tiring to say the least. We woke up at 430 to beat the heat of an uphill climb. The first 2 hours was steep and hot but it was really wet( we were in a jungle). It was rather peaceful and good exercise. We stopped at some tiny ruins after the uphill and then began the downhill trek. About 2-3 hours later and slips from pretty much everyone, we reached the bottom bridge and passed by a huge waterfall. Unfortunately we still had about 45 minutes to our lunch. Luckily I had my ham and cheese sandwich as a snack and Claire's, the nice english lady's. It was hot and i was tired but we finally got to our lunch spot by the train/hydroelectric station and had our final meal from our porters. I even treated myself to an ice cream (we had sort of reached civilization). After lunch we hiked back on flat terrain next to the train tracks. It took about 2.5 hours and i was so sore, wet, and chaffed. Luckily i somehow made it. It kind of felt like the hike that would never end. When we got close to aguas calientes (where we stayed in a hotel with showers!) it took like 20 minutes to get from dirt roads to the beginning of the town and then what seemed like ages to walk the 10 minutes (past lots of shops and hotels) uphill to our hotel. But when we got there i showered and felt like a million dollars. I have never been that dirty. I had to buy pants and socks at the market since i for some reason packed poorly and had nothing left! Once in clean clothes, claire and i skipped the hot springs (big hot bacteria filled baths 10 minutes away) and had wine and cake. I hot chocolate cake and she got vanilla but we both ended up with banana bread , mine with chocolate frosting. It was still good(as would absolutely anything). I think i might have a tapeworm as i have been eating massive quantities of food (wait for macchupicchu dinner...i am on a train back to cusco btw). Well we returned to the hotel and realized we had wifi! What a treat. We all went out for dinner at some touristy restaurant (the only option in aguas calientes) fell asleep in a real bed for the first time in what seemed like weeks. The next morning was a 5am wakeup...breakfast at the hotel and then waiting in line for the bus to machupicchu. Mp was neat and we got there early enough that it was not too hot. Raul, the tour guide gave us a 2 hr tour. We all agree he is kind of boring. He speaks well but his words are a little uninformative. Raul and JJ left around ten and then we were on our own. I hung out with
claire, the nice american couple from maryland/dc and the 3 students/phds from havard. It is funny how the americans tend to stick together.
We decided to hike up the sungate and boy was it sunny!!!It was nothing compared to our trek (maybe 40 mins up and 30 mins down) but
we all were super exhausted. It is great because everyone on our trip is about the same fitness level. The american couple runs a lot and the
3 bostonites are all super outdoorsy. The chilean couple and australian couple were also quite fast. I really enjoyed being among the first to
finish everytime, not sure why as i am usually not competitive but it was just really fun. Anyways the sungate was so rough and i got so
sweaty (and no hotel left for us) but it did feel good to get one last hike in even though it was not necessary. I doubt i would have done it had
the others not wanted to! After the exhausting mini hike with way too much sunshine, I took the bus back with Claire and the american
couple, bryan and katy (they are so cute...27/28 ish and so cool...they run a lot and are just so nice and down to earth and love each other
so much) and we went back to the hotel to change(them) and a restaurant for a snack (me and bryan). We were meeting most of the others
at 330 to have dinner/lunch but i was starved. I got a ginormous veggie omelet and was soooooo happy. We were all pooped but food
made it better. We then tried to find internet and a drugstore for cipro (katy had gotten some diarrhea bug). It is so weird how u can buy whatever meds u want here that are prescription in the us. On the trek people would be sharing antibiotics...all i could think was how stupid that was-how antibiotics dont work one at a time but as a whole with loading and maintenance doses-but luckily i shut my mouth since i cant exactly prescribe meds or answer any questions. Anyways i liked when people asked me medical questions but i didnt always know the answers (aka a lot) like "lauren, lonely planet says to take cipro and Imodium while the box says dont mix-what should i do?" my answer: i would go with the box. I honestly could not remember any interactions between the drugs but prefer playing it safe always with a "i dont know but i would...". Regardless, I am excited for the day when random people ask me questions and i am really a dr and I can answer!
After the hotel we met the others at the hotel and went to some touristy place(as i said they r all touristy in aguas). I had pizza and beer and was so happy. Since we still had time to kill until our train we all went to get dessert (my tres tres leches of the trip). We had to go back to the hotel to get our bags and then we went to board the train to some little town. I ended up in a different car than the others (probably because the 3 harvards, american couple, and claire all booked way before the trek-unlike me.) it is nice to be alone for once in probably a week! I just caught up on some of my blogs (downloaded earlier from the hotel via google reader <3 ) and now just typed for a solid 40minutes. Wherever we arrive we catch a llamapath bus back to cusco. We are being dropped off right by the office which is luckily just a few blocks away from kim's apartment! I have a flight tomorrow morn at 940 am to lima and then will either go into town for a couple days or try and catch an earlier flight home (mon v wed) since i am so pooped and could use some home relax time before third yr. I have orientation thurs at 730 am and then get my teeth crowned friday morning (oh broken jaw when will u be done?) and fly out of gville to nyc fri at 6 to mon at 6 to spend the weekend with barrie and lindsay (yay!). Then vascular surgery tues morn at god knows what time! So much to look forward to. I do wish i had more time to relax and enjoy peru but i am lucky to have the opportunity to have done this! All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and am very glad to have done this alone and met such neat and different people from all over the world. I hope that I get
the chance to do a longer backpacking trip in 4th yr!!!

I am in aguas calientes (the tourist town that you stay in the night before machu picchu) and ready for a 5am wake-up to go see machupicchu tomorrow. I'll type more later but here is what i typed up while trekking and camping the past 4days/3nights. I don't think I have ever been as dirty as I was today hiking into aguas calientes. Luckily I got a hot shower tonight....

Day 1
The hike started off very early. I had on a pair of spandex and workout pants over it expecting it to be super cold. Unfortunately it was very hot! I was pretty parched and sore and hot for the next 3 hours. Luckily we stopped for lunch and I got a refill of h20 and since then have been fine. The food we get is so delicious. We started with guac then had asparagus soup and garlic bread. Then we had. The rest of the day was pretty exhausting and i was so sore but luckily it cooled down. I think my neck/shoulders are the most sore. The actual exercise part is hard but manageable, but the breathing is the most difficult when going uphill. I like to think about all the stuff we learn in physiology as I climb up steep hills. It is super dorky but i always think what my blood is up to. When i take little breaks, I always squat or lean over which increases the preload to the heart. Little kids with serious heart defects do it when they run around so i have decided it is the best thing for me. We reached our final camp after about 3 more hours (totaling about 6-7 hours) and boy was i happy. I changed out of my sweaty clothes (btw i need to get hiking pants, hiking shoes, and sweat resistant clothing. I am doing great the second day with spandex and scrub pants but dorky hiking pants with Zip off bottoms would be awesome. My sneakers are fine but it would be nice to have extra ankle protection. Luckily i bought/borrowed a hiking stick from the company and it has been awesome. I will give a full rundown of what i would bring at the end- mostly so i can look back on it when i hike again. When we arrived to our campsite, the porters had everything set up. I relaxed a bit in the tent and then we had happy hour soon after. It was so great. There are 13 people on our trek with our 2 tourguides. We hung out in the tent having hot chocolate and crackers with a caramel nutella-like spread and such yummy popcorn (mmm butter and salt). They also give us snacks for the day (to eat somewhere between breakfast lunch and dinner) so we are definitely fed! Yum Dinner was soon after in the same warm tent. We had lots of food: soup with veggies and pasta, chicken and lots of yummy veggies in a yummy sauce. I feel like i am not giving it justice! We had flambayed baby bananas for dessert! After we "washed" up and got into our tents. It was quite warm and i am sharing with a very nice english woman from London. She is very nice and just spent several months volunteering in an orphanage in cusco. I slept like a baby alpaca. We woke up at 5 am to Coca tea. Everyone chews coca leaves here which i believe is eventually cocaine. It apparently gets rid of nausea headaches, is an anesthetic etc so it appears to most likely be cocaine. I of course have not tried it because the last thing i want is to be kicked out of med school. We had our first breakfast which was so delicious. Nice crisp omelets with green peppers, more milo ( hot chocolate) and cuscan bread with such delicious thick jam with big chunks of strawberries. We left for our hike soon after to the salkantay mountain. It was a super steep uphill climb for 2 and a half hours. Towards the end I was looking ahead what felt like 12 ft and making it my goal to get from 1 rest stop to another. It was quite strenuous but very rewarding to get to the top greeted with warm tea from one of our porters. We sat ( and froze) as the guide talked about the salkantay mountain, aka savage moutain, a big snow peaked monstrosity that our trek was centered around ( along with machu picchu). In 2000 the inca trail became regulated and so the salkantay trek was created. Much fewer people trek it and it is quite beautiful. It is still unregulated so we saw 2young men trekking it sans tourguides and trekkers. I much prefer my luxe version complete with tents set up, horses to carry my bag and porters to serve me tea atop the mountains. I have also found that i no longer care about stepping in cow/horse/donkey/mule shit that scatters the trails...as long as it isnt fresh of course. It is just every other step along the way. So After reaching the top of the mountain we started our downhill descent. Luckily i had my walking stick: what a lifesaver. I made the next 2.5 hr trek with one of our guides raul. It was really great talking to him and learning about his country and how we grew up in the foothills of the sacred valley speaking quetcha. School became free and mandatory in the early 90s so he was able to go to school as a child and then to public university to become a tour guide. I foubd it very interesting all the tourguides must have a 4-5 yr university degree to be a tour guide, it is basically one the majors they can choose from. We basically ran down the mountain and then waited a good 20 minutes for the rest of the group to catch up. It was great until Raul started asking me if I wanted to drink sangria with him under the stars that evening. I decided to keep my distance from that point on! There is another guide, JJ and 12 other people on my tour. The nice english woman i am sharing a tent with, 4 couples, and the 3 students from harvard who are doing fieldwork afyer the trek. One couple is from the us (an editor and an english teacher) who i really like. They are in their late 20s: early 30s and are just really nice and both run a lot. There is a couple from chile, Switzerland, and australia as well. The harvard kids are an undergrad, a gay phd student, and a postdoc who grew up in sonoma and went to Berkeley. All interesting people! So after part 1 of the downhill journey we hiked another hour down to our lunch site. We even got 30 minutes to enjoy the sunny spot and squeeze in a catnap. I was not happy when i woke up and we had about 3 hrs downhill to go! Luckily i got back in the swing of things and had a nice chat with the phd student. He is super nice and i got to talk all about medicine ( and he appeared really interested). and not only medicine but obgyn. Gosh i love my profession. The last bit of the days journey had lots of mud and wet paths (downhill) and it was a treat to arrive at our campsite. I washed my feet in semi warm water and laid down exhausted until hour happy very soon after. Dinner followed, and then i had to politely decline my tourguides persistent attempts to get me alone. Next time i travel alone i will talk about my trauma surgeon husband who is just so wonderful he couldn't take off work. I slept wonderfully and woke up at 6! A whole extra hour which i thoroughly enjoyed. Today (friday) was a nice short day. We traveled through the jungle along a pretty river. There were lots of bugs and even a pack of mules along the way. We stopped 3 hrs in for our snacks- cookies, an apple, and passion fruit ( from the farm we rested at and possibly one of the yummiest things i have ever had.) the next 2-3 hrs were relatively quick and painless (as painless as trekking on a sore body can be) and i enjoyed a nice conversation with the australian woman about medicine (popular topic) and her job as a social worker. She and her boyfriend have been traveling for 3 months around south america and have another month left in peru once they return. I am very glad that this trip has a decent amount of people on it because i definitely enjoy that i get to meet lots of people! It is a lot of fun to hang out ( when we are eating or hiking...the only other thing we do is sleep) and meet people from all over the world! We arrived at our final campsite around 1:30 and enjoyed a nice lunch. Now we have the afternoon off (it feels like the first time i have had 3 hrs to myself since before the boards!) so time for a nap then happy hour, dinner, and a 430 wake-up.The salkantay spot was our highest elevation at 4600 m. I checked my camera for pics of the signs when we hiked cotopaxi in ecuador and it was at least 4800 m there which explains why i got altitude sickness there. I have no idea how long they recommended we get acclimated in quito but i know we had only arrived the night before. They recommend minimum 2 days for these machu picchu treks and i luckily had 3 and haven't yet experienced any sickness.

Oropesa: rural clinic

We went to the center of the city last night for some music and then all went out for dinner at a restaurant that donates some proceeds to a local kids shelter. The tres leches was so yummy!!! Then Kim and I went salsa dancing (if u want to call what i was doing salsa dancing). This morning we woke up early (830) to go take the ambulance to a clinic outside of cusco. It was such a wonderful place to visit. It was about an hour out of cusco but the clinic was so nice. Most of th patients had chronic conditions: an 18 yo with glioblastoma multiforme who was nearing the end of her life, an old woman with breast cancer w mets to the lung pleura and severe breathing problems, an older woman with end stage cervical cancer, several young men in their 20s who had been in accidents and were paraplegic, quadriplegic, and one also had brain damage. There were a couple melanomas, 1 man's had met'd to his brain. And also an older man with leprosy (Luckily he wanted me to take his pic). Anyways...have to wake up early for my 5 day trek to salkantay. I am hoping the hotel on the 4th nt has internet! I went on a debriefing tonight at llama path (not trek) and met this other woman from London who was volunteering in an orphanage for the past 3 months so We will be sharing a tent! So bed time!

Hi

I arrived in Peru around 8 am yesterday and got into bed. Luckily one of Kim's roommates is out of town so I got to enjoy a nice nap in a very dark room. Whenever I woke up I headed out with Kim and her friend, Kathy, to grab lunch. We went to a wonderful little restaurant and I had a Lenchu (i could be totally misspelling that) aka pork and a tamale. It was delicioso. The rest of the day consisted of walking around. I was looking for a trek, but ended up going with one I found online because it made me feel safer (based on reviews) though I am positive I got totally ripped off. I met 3 of the people going on the trek from Boston who are grad students in something earthy today when i went into llamapath's office, so it'll be fun! Anyways I slept a solid 10 hours last night which was must needed. This morning i went into the clinic the first year med students are working at. It was fun, very relaxed and tomorrow they are taking an ambulance out to a rural clinic. I'll probably go since it will be a fun adventure and they will be back by lunch. They are doing there research on H. Pylori at a clinic run by nuns so it is definitely different than the states. The nuns have all different jobs- surgeon, secretary, cook. And they provide a ton of food and are so nice. I doubt I'd meet such interesting people if I didn't meet up with Kim. After lunch we walked around the city for the rest of the afternoon. We found this little hole in the wall from lonely planet that serves the best chocolate cake in south america. It reminded me of chocolate chip banana bread, except instead of being excited about the chocolate chips, it was like always getting the chocolate chips. It was yummy but not sure if I'd give it the title of best in south america. I am also really looking forward to tres leches. Tonight will be more food and possibly even salsa! Must say it is so nice to not be studying and instead eating my way through peru. I leave on my trek wednesday morn, get back sunday night and then fly into lima monday. Ill probably stay in a hotel on the beach in Miraflores (thanks mom and dad!) and take a bike tour on tuesday...but who knows! Also i was planning on spellcheck but somehow my phone told blogspot I am in a spanish speaking country and thus this post is in spanish (it is not). Bye!

To peru

I love flying. I love airports and buying magazines and overly expensive food. I like meeting random people. So I am pretty glad I am spending a solid 12 hours traveling within the first 24 hours of freedom post-step. I got to watch the Justin Bieber movie on my first flight and honestly it was awesome. I couldn't stop smiling. I am exhausted from 6 hrs of sleep x 2 day (compared to my usual 9) and I keep yawning and feeling it in my gimpy right jaw. But besides that I must saw life is pretty sweet right now! Also i get to plug my phone into a usb port during each flight which makes for a happy music listening lauren. You know: dido enya the usual.

5pm

Hey everyone...figured I keep everyone updated on my trip to Peru via this blog.

Im waiting at the Miami airport. I took step 1 yesterday and have been in a frenzy ever since. I had to clean my apartment and do laundry and pack. It doesnt sound like much, but when you have been hibernating for a month in your apartment without cleaning or taking out trash...it is quite the task. I had to also reorganize my 500 page First Aid, the study book I used, because I had taken all the pages out of my binder in a frenzy as I kept thinking of things I needed to look at once last time. Pages were all over my apartment. Anyways long story short, I was in bed by 130 am with only a few outings to my first aid to check if i had guessed correctly on some random question from the test.

I woke up this morning and got out of bed on the first shot at 8 am and was
On the road with coffee and a full tank of gas by 9 am. I got to west palm around 1230 and we(my parents and I) left for the airport at 2. Luckily it only took an hour to get to the airport because my flight was at 5 not 6 like I thought. I realized that on my way to the airport of course when I looked at the ticket (apparently for the first time). So here I am waiting and on time with only a couple minor Infarcts to my heart. To Bogota I go (for layover uno)...

Medical outreach trip: 1/∞

Exciting news:

I take the boards on June 17.

I hit the wards on July 5.

I got the cavalier address labels I ordered in the mail today.

I go to Ecuador tomorrow!!!!!

Lily + Betty BFF!

Liz and I brought the pups to the doggy park this past weekend and they had a ball!

Photoshopped Colorado

I finally got around to editing some pictures from my trip to Colorado. I used my phone for most of the trip, since snowboarding wasn't exactly conducive to using a real camera. When we got back to Boulder we went to the foothills of the Rockies and I got to take some neat pictures...

I got a little carried away with Photoshop in the last one.

Google Reader

In case you are new to the blogosphere (or lazy like I used to be) one of my favorite technological advances is my Reader. Google has this great little device that somehow constantly checks all the blogs I follow and then updates my reader with the new ones!!! It is amazing. I used to just follow a few blogs and then as my inventory grew, I realized the time had come. Best decision ever. Well not really, but it is awesome.

All you have to do is click on the little RSS/Subscription button on pretty much any blog and add it to whatever reader you use (I obviously love Google). And then when you go to gmail, just click on Reader at the top (or pull-down menu) and up pops your reader.

Bliss. Pure bliss. Now back to studying.

Madelines

Cupcakes and Cashmere is one of the blogs I follow and the writer always makes such delicious little pastries, today being madelines. Since a friend of mine got engaged recently and we are having a little celebration this Saturday night, maybe I'll have another blog post coming soon...

Alyssa's Shining Moment

Since not everyone has heard about my fun, little experience in the ER, I figured I would share. Over winter break I went up to NYC with Catie to visit Lindsay + Shelley and bring in the New Year. Of course our flight was the day after the blizzard hit, so we ended up moving our flight from Monday night to Wednesday night. This took a good 50 phone calls in the span of 48 hours to Delta, ending with a nice Delta employee saving the day and getting us on 2 days earlier than our Friday departure!

Catie + I arrived at 1030 pm and were more than ready to make up for lost time. We had a fun, grown up evening and when we arrived home hours later, Lindsay's little sister had fallen and hit her head. Blood was gushing everywhere and she was not entirely sure how she had fallen. She had not gone out with us that evening and had simply woken up from her slumber and fell on the way to bathroom. Being the awesome second year medical student that I am, I did a neurological exam on Alyssa and she appeared fine. But also being an awesome second year medical student, I decided that Alyssa could be hemorrhaging and dying at any moment, so off to the hospital Alyssa and I went. We left Lindsay behind for good reasons. The next 6+ hours were awesome. Jk. Considering it was my first experience in an ER on the patient's side, I was very suprised that all the complaints that people have about ERs were REALLY true.

Luckily we went because it turned out Alyssa needed 6 stitches.

We left the hospital in the daylight at 10 am and then slept all day long...
If you want to see the damage look below. Caution: it might be gross to you!!

Breck + Boulder

Some pics from my new iphone app from Ski-cation....

No more J-turns for Catie

Back to Boulder where Laura lives...

Happy Hour at The Kitchen

Mountain Sun Brewery

A cute pic of my cousins...

My older cousin Marcia got married last year and the cousins got to redo a cute pic from childhood...

And here is a cute pic of Lily all Burrito-ed up...

HEAL 5k

Last weekend was the 5k I have been organizing since last semester. I planned the 5k as a fundraiser for the medical outreach trip I am going on to Ecuador over Spring Break. It turned out awesome!!! We ended up having over 250 people register and we made about $6500. Check out our website for more pictures and to learn about the trip: HEAL Website