Success at last...

This week I finally managed to get the kind of recording that we want - the simultaneous stimulation of caudal and rostral faces of the electrocyte. On the left side of the screen the little bump represents the stimulation and the larger bump is the response - a synaptic potential. On the right side of the screen, we have stimulation of the opposite face with its synaptic response. These are the kinds of responses that we eventually want to test for a healthy cell. Hopefully there are more of these to come.

Apart from work, I continue to explore the Centro. Every Sunday there is a huge street fair in a more run-down part of town. At this feria you can buy anything from stolen license plates to gold jewelry. The whole fair spans about 4 x 4 blocks and is filled with people in the afternoon. In the busier parts of the feria there are traffic jams of people looking at clothing, books, shoelaces, whatever there is. I bet some of the vendors are homeless who find junk and attempt to sell it. At the fair I had a chorizo burger. And though this was a different day, the picture below is of a mime at la Plaza de los Treinta y Tres Orientales. She stands still if you don't give her money, but once you deposit money then she starts making strange movements towards you. In her hand is a paper flower. I don't know what the idea is behind this.

Another important event this week was that Uruguay is now officially in the octafinals for the World Cup. I watched as Uruguay destroyed South Africa 3 to 0, and as they beat Mexico 1 to 0. After the Mexico game, there were literally make shift parades in the streets. People were waving the Uruguayan flag like crazy, workers came out of the shop to cheer, people threw confetti from buildings and also started to block traffic. I have never seen so many people so excited for a sporting event. In the US we have official parades and things that are planned way in advance, but here it seemed as if the entire city (which is basically the country) formed spontaneous parades up and down la calle 18 de julio. Fue muy impresionante. And below are the people that I watched that game with:

And yet again, because of my mentor's busy schedule and because I am not quite independent of his supervision, I had a free day and I passed it with a couple new friends at the rambla (beach side). Because I am not quite photogenic I had to choose the best picture, and unfortunately it did not include the other people. Also, below is a special picture of a mountain that I had to scale. To whom it concerns, it was extremely difficult to reach the part of the mountain where I found this. When I get back to the US, I expect a gift in return.