Fresh from 7hrs of surgery, I give you....my sore swollen feet!


I kid...i kid...well actually my feet are sore but there is no reason for me to present that to you. Its been a few days since I blogged so here is the 411 on what has been going down. 


Over the last weekend I visited Antwerp - the fashion city. And oh boy yes it is! Firstly it is the most important diamond processing market in the world! So as one can imagine, there are loads of Diamond shops around - very pretty and sparkly. So when we got there we had a few hours of running about which we spent in some of their malls because it was like 34deg and hence....we were melting! Then we met our couch surfing host. For the newbies - Couch Surfing is an international community that since 2004 has been active and this is their mission statement: Our mission as an organization is to create inspiring experiences: cross-cultural encounters that are fun, engaging, and illuminating. These experiences take many forms. CouchSurfing's initial focus was on hosting and "surfing" (staying with a local as a guest in their home). Alongside these core experiences, we now also facilitate a growing array of activities and events.
Oh btw its also free - which is also awesome!


So we met our first host - a medical student from Ghent but living in Antwerp. She was great to be with and really fun and friendly. She was very accommodating and we had a great time going out to the local spots with her. On our first night there we went out for a drink in a close by square which had a canopy of fairy lights that made it look like stars! Very cute! 

The following day we had a slow morning with a long breakfast and then headed into town and went around some of the tourist spots around town and some of their vintage shops!! We also visited this uber-exclusive chocolate shop that had the most AMAZING flavors! (they also had the traditional classical flavors)
Few of the ones I remember include;

• white chocolate and yellow curry
• sun dried tomatoes and olive oil - yes in a chocolate
• lime and vodka
• passion fruit and milk chocolate
• Cabernet sauvignon vinegar
• Wasabi
• tequila
• etc etc etc.

There also happened to be a Tall Ships Race starting in Antwerp that weekend so the river side was full with MASSIVE sailing ships, all in top shape and there were loads of activities occurring all over the city including marches and fireworks. That night we had planned on going out but there was like a freak rain and thunder storm what was quite savage....weird European weather. So we just stayed in having a bottle of Trappist Beer (brewed by Monks - and yes its like over 9% alc).

The following day we went to see the house where the famous painter Rubens lived, which was really nice and then back home for a sumptuous BBQ with the dutch friends of our host.

Finally we caught the 45min train back to Leuven and refreshed a bit before going out to the olde markt to watch the game in the biggest bar in Belgium. Its such a pity that the dutch lost, the square was quite quiet after the match, I'm sure it would have been a bit more chaotic if they had won - but then again they are dutch.

Today back at the hospital I got to play with a piece of surgical equipment costing around 1.5Million Euros. This is the Da Vinci Surgical Robot. This is the ULTIMATE in boyz toyz. I got to actually use it and play around with a sample silicone tester set on a petri dish, and this machine translates the movements of my fingers into an amazingly dexterous and intricate movements that are not possible with standard Laparoscopic surgery. It was so cool and awesome! Apparently one of the surgeons here uses it, so I will try to get in to one of his surgeries and see this puppy in action!!! Oh the awesomeness!