Hola from a staycation in San Jose! I am currently writing this from our AirBnB, a nice little apartment with some insane views of San Jose. This week has been incredibly laid back, which has been pretty relaxing and a good recharge. Here is your weekly recap:
This week, I mostly did work at Hospital Calderon Guardia, the hospital that we worked at during our first week at Meditek. The main focus of these trips was to do preventative maintenance on anesthesia machines. In total, there were 26 anesthesia machines that our team was responsible for. By the end of the week, Santiago and I were taking apart the machines, looking for errors, and running tests on our own without needing much guidance from our supervisors. In total, I think we finished 19/26 machines this week. Aside from that, I also went to Heredia to do maintenance on delivery beds in the OB/GYN wing of the hospital, and to Hospital Nacional de Geriatrica to fix an ECG machine. Overall, this work week was very fun and gave me a new sense of confidence working with medical equipment.
Aside from work, I also finally got a gym membership (woohoo) because I was starting to get a little stir crazy just sitting around everyday. Last week, I went with the guys to the gym just to check it out and got a hydro-massage which eventually drove me to return. So I’m back on my gym grind, which will hopefully STAY consistent for me this time. Other than that, I watched 4th of July fireworks from the rooftop of the hostel. I was having some major 4th of July FOMO after seeing pictures of my friends and family back home having parties and eating BBQ, so seeing the fireworks was a nice touch of home. I also had some good eats this week –Wednesday night after leaving the hospital late, my supervisor took us out for wings at a local German pub (that doesn’t actually sell German food) — they were soooo good. On Thursday, the GMI crew had our weekly “pizza Thursday” at Pizzeria Oliva — also soooo good, 10/10 recommend trying the hot honey there.
4th of July fireworks!
On Friday, we made the decision to get out of the hostel and rent an AirBnB for the weekend. We’re staying in an apartment just a 15 minute walk from the hostel, but it feels like a whole new world over here. Our unit is pretty high up, so we have a view of the whole city and the mountains. Friday night after checking in, we all went to the Costa Rica Beer Factory for some dinner and drinks. I had panzana, a sweet pork dish that according to the others, “tastes like cinnamon rolls or dessert” after I forced them all to try it. It was good for the first few bites, but then was so sweet that I had to steal pretzel bites from Hannah to get rid of the taste. However, I definitely want to return to try their specialty burgers.
Beer Factory Friday night
Today has been very relaxing. We actually went back to the hostel for breakfast, and then came back to catch some rays at the pool. Afterwards we went to lunch, and I just woke up from a fat nap induced by the burrito I ate earlier.
Post-nap sunset views
I’m looking forward to cooking dinner tonight and seeing what tomorrow brings. Thanks for reading this week’s blog, hasta luego!