My Weekend Away...

The rest of my OG I week was cool. I went to clinic and saw some new things. First of all, samples for pap smears are collected with a huge tongue blade and then smeared on a slide and placed in a jar with what I assume is some type of fixative. Again there are no stir-ups, so as the examiner you have to just stand and turn your head to see what you are doing. In the gyn clinic, I felt a 16-week size uterus from a huge fibroid and a cervical cancer tumor which was invading the side wall. The next day we went to the OR and saw a few specimens of fibroids after a couple of hysterectomies.
For the weekend, a bunch of us from San Antonio and two of the medical students from Australia went to Pondicherry, which is about 3 hours away from Vellore. It is a French colony established back in the 1800s, so it has some French articheture and cobblestone roads. It was a lot cleaner than Vellore, but way more humid because it is next to the Bengal Bay. We had dinner on a rooftop Friday night and then shopped on Saturday. The French food unfortunately was not as good as I expected and the shopping was mediocre.
We went to one of the ashrams located in the city where some of the locals and tourists go to meditate and do yoga. There were beautiful flowers inside and everyone has to go in barefoot and no pictures are allowed. Also, two of my friends and I received a massage called, Abhyanga, which is an Indian type of massage with fragranced oils. It was an experience that I rather not discuss on my blog, but I don't know if I'll ever get that type of massage again!
Here is a picture of a stand where we got some fruit drinks. At the time we weren't sure if it was safe, but the drinks were good even though the guy working there yelled at me because he didn't understand that I wanted some water too.
Overall it was an interesting weekend with many new experiences. I am looking forward to seeing some different things on internal medicine starting tomorrow.