Bucaramanga: Una Ciudad Santandereana

Thursday nights are "family nights" in the B family, and this week they gave me a grand tour of the highlights of the city. First we went to the Parque Garcia Rovira to see the Iglesia San Laureano, constructed in 1779, and the capitol building of Santander. On the way to the other side of town, we passed by the Museo Simon Bolivar, a large house where Bolivar lived for two months. Then we visited the famous Club Comercio de Bucaramanga, which is like a very old, ornate social club in the middle of the city. It used to be the place where people went to buy and sell goods. On the same block, in Parque Santander, is the Iglesia Sagrada Familia, (no not in Spain). I have included a photo of Sofi, me, Adriana, and Juanita standing in front of it. Afterwards, we went to the great "megamoll" which is a giant shopping center, where we ate dinner at Crepes and Waffles. Crepes and Waffles is a Colombian chain created by two graduating university student that only employs single moms. I had a "crepe de estilo hindú" and then we had ice cream.

Last night (Saturday) we went to the "Fiesta del Anniversario" of the country club. Everyone wore white and the food was delicious. After dinner was the dancing! Colombian parties are different from American parties in the EVERYONE dances. Nobody sits much, except to drink more whiskey, which is served alone with ice. I salsa-ed, cumbia-ed, rumba-ed , and I don't know what else to a Cuban band. Towards the end of the party, they serve a typical Colombian soup full of meat and potatoes and arepas, which are like corn biscuits, on the side. We did not get home until 4 am!

Today (Sunday) we are resting, and I am helping Dr. B with a presentation that he is giving in Boston this week about the paper that we are writing. It is a clinical study demonstrating the benefits of performing synchronous carotid artery stenting (CAS) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). My "mission" while I'm here (besides learning as much as I can about vascular surgery, the Colombian health system, and Spanish) is to help them translate the research in Spanish into a paper in English, to be submitted to a journal to be published. It is apparently a very controversial topic whether to perform these procedures together or on separate occasions. When it is published, my name will be included in the list of authors!

Until later this week,

xoxokr