¡Hola a todos! This week I will be writing about our dinner at Ram Luna, hiking at Hacienda La Chimba, and more updates on my projects at Establishment Labs.
Highlights:
- Completing the 5km hiking trail at Hacienda La Chimba
- Steak dinner at Ram Luna
- Getting a better than expected haircut
Lowlights:
- Hacienda La Chimba trail giving me a reality check on how out of shape of I am
- Tropical storm headed toward Costa Rica
- The dessert at Ram Luna
Ram Luna
On Saturday night Vanessa and I went over to Selina to plan out our last 5 weekend Costa Rica with out cohort. In the future, expect to see blog posts that cover trips to Guanacaste, Tortuga Island, Manuel Antonio, and Irazu volcano! That evening, our cohort ate dinner at Ram Luna, an upscale restaurant that is located in the mountains surrounding San Jose. The views of San Jose up on the mountain was beautiful, however, during our dinner a lot of fog had rolled in and completely blocked our view of the city. I ordered a surf and turf and it went beyond my expectations. The quality of the steak was pretty good, especially for the price I had paid. For dessert I ordered the El Macetero, which was a dessert in the shape of a flower pot. The dessert itself was inside the flower pot and I was a little disappointed because it was basically just cookie crumbs on top of some vanilla ice cream. Overall, Ram Luna was probably one of the most unique dining experiences we’ve had during this trip.
Foggy view of San Jose
Surf and Turf
El Macetero – the flowerpot
Hacienda La Chimba
On Sunday we decided to go to Hacienda La Chimba which is a hiking trail near Escazu. When we first got there, we were recommended by one of the staff that we use walking sticks to assist us in our hike because the frequent rain had made everything slippery. At first we were hesitant to use the walking sticks for the sake of looking more competent, but boy were we glad to take them on the hike. The trail turned out to be much more intense than expected, with it being entirely a muddy dirt path full of steep inclines and declines along a mountain. During the first 2km I was sweating incredibly hard, however, after that point the trail became easier and my runner’s high kicked in, leading to me enjoying the hike a lot more. Throughout the trail we were able to see interesting landmarks such as a giant buddha statue, a large Costa Rica sign where you stand in place of the letter “i”, and also La Mano del Mantra, which was a giant hand that you could stand on. The hike ended up being a very rewarding outdoor experience, and I was proud of our cohort of beginner hikers for completing the trail.
The trail was quite steep at times
Group pic on La Mano del Mantra
Establishment Labs
For our joint project, this week Vanessa and I first researched patents outside of the ones given to us by the company. To our surprise, we ended up finding patents that very closely resembled some of the ideas that we had brainstormed previously. To address this, we met with the legal team to get more clarification on the claims that we had to avoid. We had realized that the claims we had to avoid were much broader and stricter than we had originally thought, which led to us doing some more brainstorming on potential solutions. Our next steps are to meet with the design team to discuss the feasibility of our solutions and to generate a list of materials for prototyping our solutions. We will also meet with the legal team again so they can make a IP risk assessment on our new ideas. Vanessa and I also got to conduct some hands-on testing this week relating to a new coating for the implant insertion sleeves. Unfortunately, that may be all the details I can talk about on this blog. For my IoT project, I finished my company assessment spreadsheet and I was able to narrow down on the companies I needed to research more deeply. I made further progress on my company detail document, and I also made further progress on my IoT technologies document. My goal for next week with this project is to finish my company detail document and IoT technologies document.
Vanessa with her tower of breast implants
That sums it up for this week. Although our cohort had planned to take a trip to Manuel Antonio this weekend, that has been put on pause due to a tropical storm headed our way. Tune in next week for more updates on my projects and fun trips!