I made it!

After running into a little bit of trouble at the Minneapolis airport (they wouldn't let me in because I didn't have the same credit card used to book the flight), my mom came to save the day by leaving work and getting back to the airport just in time for me to catch the flight. Thanks Mom!

I arrived in Lima at about 11 pm (they are in the same time zone as Minnesota in case you are wondering) and my bag was the LAST one to come off of the conveyer belt. Omar (the cab driver that Katie always uses) was there waiting for me with a sign with my name on it and he brought me to Katie's (and now my) apartment. As I turned the corner out the elevator on Katie's floor, she ran up from behind me and tackled me. I guess she was excited to see me too!

We stayed up for a while hanging out, but had to go to bed relatively early because I already went to work today. I went to meet with Dr. Bob Gilman, a doctor who does a lot of public health research down here. I sat through about 7 hours of meetings (mostly in Spanish...) before going back to his apartment with Katie. I am going to be doing a few rotations in the lab, where I will work with scientists studying tuberculosis, HIV, and chagas, among other diseases. I will also follow my roommate Miranda to Arequipa and also up north to see how the field studies work, and after that I will meet with Bob again to figure out what project I will be working on for the remainder of my time here.

After the meeting with Bob, Katie and I met up with Miranda and Beto to eat Anticucho (cow's heart).

I'm going to meet with another doctor tomorrow to figure out how I can shadow him for a few weeks to see how orthopedics is down here. I will continuously update my pictures on picassa, so feel free to check out all of my pics by clicking on the link to the right.

I hope all is well back home... don't forget to come visit me!

One week to go!

After having my graduation commencement last week, I am finally ready to get out of here! I am leaving this Thursday and will be living in my sister's apartment for the first few weeks that I am there. I am going to meet up with a doctor from Johns Hopkins Medical School to figure out what project(s) I will be working on, take some Spanish lessons, and work with an orthopedic surgeon while he does his rounds in the hospital. I want to really thank my family for helping me out through this hectic time in my life as I'm moving away... you've been awesome!

If you aren't already and want to be, send me an email at past0037@umn.edu or send me a message on facebook to get set up to receive automatic updates from the blog. I promise I won't get super annoying and update this thing a million times per day, but if you want to see updates and pictures from my adventure in Peru then let me know!