First day working in the lab

It's pretty late according to US standards, but at nine o'clock the evening is just getting started. The sun is just about to set, and it will probably be light for another hour or so. I am kind of tired but will probably go to the feria tonight anyway.

Today I actually woke up in time for Spanish class. Being a conversational Spanish class, the teacher speaks very little English. It's not that he can't speak English, but that he won't. He wants us to learn to understand Spanish as much as possible. The class lasts from 8:30 til 10:30am. Afterwards we ate breakfast at the cafeteria. I had this egg sandwich, but it was no American egg sandwich. Es muy bien.

Anyways, as you can see here, Spanish people take coffee very seriously. No styrofoam cups, no cappaucino machines, etc. No for them it is a small cup or glass with a saucer, spoon, and a packet of sugar. And don't be fooled by the small size. This coffee packs a punch. All of this is fine by me.

So today I actually started the lab work that we are doing. I was given a brown paper bag with a specific lichen sample that was gathered in Antartica in 2007. I use a tweezers to separate the actual lichens from the other stuff (moss, penquin poop, etc). Yeah so that was interesting. I will probably finish that tomorrow. The next step is use a mortar and pestle to grind the lichen to a powder, then dissolve the powder in acid. After that, I only have a vague idea of what comes next.