OK this is going to be quick recap of summer, I was a super slacker as far as this blog goes, which is kinda funny since I had A LOT of free time but oh well! I was a lazy bum for the most part but also seriously enjoyed it, reading a ton of FUN books, watching some good and crappy movies and TV, hanging out with my family and having lots of good friend time. Highlights have been Jody's 80's b-day party with the awesome costumes, girl's weekend San Diego for 4th of July with lots of beach, little bit of partying and continuous fun for 5 days, and the last installment of Harry Potter! I'm going to miss waiting for hours in line and watching the crazy dressed up people go over ridiculous HP trivia. I got to spend a lot of time up in phoenix hanging out and staying with friends. I was a bit productive working with a dairy vet a few times and got to see a bunch of the great little towns surrounding phnx. I realized that I'm not cut out for just production medicine but it does have potential for me if it can be combined with more individual animal care and treating sick animals as opposed to working on prevention. Also realized how much I have forgotten already from my first year (kind of terrifying) and if I had been smart I might have reviewed some notes but oh well, hopefully it'll come back to me quick when I need it!
Ecuador and the Galapagos were amazing, as shown in my pictures on FB! Some highlights as far as vet stuff goes: performing surgery all by myself from first incision to last suture! All in all I removed 5 balls, and 2 and 1/2 uterus/ovary pairs over 2 days of spay/neuter clinics! It was terrifying and thrilling and exhausting and I LOVED IT! The conditions we did them in were abysmal (lights and electricity were sometimes available) and it was a definite learning on your feet kind of thing, so I am excited to go through surgery class and learn the technical/correct/sterile way of doing things. We got to inject caimens, turtles, tortoises, and many varieties of snakes with anti-parasitic and vitamins; pull an infected canine tooth out of a puma (really hard when you only have a few tools!) and blow dart some wild pigs to move to another enclosure! I have terrible aim w/ a blow dart (like pretty much everything else) so I am hoping I get more opportunities to work on that important skill :)
For fun stuff: waterfall repelling in Banos was GREAT, exciting, a little chilly and scary but totally worth it(plus super cute guides); sightseeing in Quito and on our drives across the country was great, gorgeous forests w/ clouds and lots of agriculture and green-ess, and the Galapagos was just FANTASTIC.
The animals there just dont even care about people since most evolved w/o any predators so you can get REALLY close. The big galapagos tortoises are just so awesome to see and snorkeling was a dream come true-I got to swim next to a sea turtle! I was smiling so hard my goggles and mouthpiece kept filling with water :) Sea lions were also pretty awesome to swim with, one was playing catch with us and a random flip flop int he water! And all the marine iguanas were so cool to see on the islands just chilling on top of each other, never seen anything like it.
After the rest of the group left two friends and I went to the Coast and hung out on the beach for a few days, read and drank beers in hammocks, did a surfing lesson (soooo hard!) and got stared at constantly by the locals, the men liked to lift their shirts halfway up so their big beer bellies would hang out. Never figured out why that was a good thing to do? We got to use a lot more spanish here so that was interesting, luckily most of the local boys who tried talking to us loved to hear the sound of their own voices and did an awesome kind of hair flip w/ their long curly beach locks so we didn't have to add much to the conversation :)
After that we went back to Quito then one friend and I went to the Quilotoa loop and stayed in this awesome ecolodge in the mountains and did some horseback riding, hiking and more relaxing in hammocks. I got to do everything I wanted to in Ecuador and the Galapagos, and I feel so satisfied and happy with how the trip went. It was almost scary how well everything turned out!
Got back home, ran around crazily for about a week then headed back to dear old Iowa. Beginning of school stuff I will save for another time. Hope all your summers were as enjoyable!
