by Daniel William Bloodgood
Hello everyone and welcome to my first PIRE Blog post. I would just like to start out by saying that I am so thrilled to be here in Granada. When I got off the plane, I was truly blown away by the architecture and landscape of this amazing city. A friend who visited here once called it one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and from what I’ve seen I would have to say that I agree. As we sat in the Plaza de Reyes Catilcos eating tapas, watching street performers, and the sun slowly setting on the Andalusian countryside, I truly knew I was in a special place.
But my stay has also been very fulfilling on an intellectual level as well. The first morning I went to lab I was very impressed by the University’s new center for neuroscience research called CIMCYC. It’s a beautiful space with dedicated fMRI, TMS, and lots of other scientific equipment. The building itself can best be described as very new and very white (emphasis on the white). Everyone in the lab has been very welcoming to us, and Kaitlyn and I were thrilled to find out that there was entirely new 32-channel ERP lab that we would have free reign over during our time here (is that amazing or what?). The only downside is since not many people have used it so Kaitlyn and I have been spending almost all of our time in the ERP trying figure out the differences in the two systems. Shout out to Ben and Kelsey who were kind enough to volunteer their heads for capping. I’m not sure they exactly knew what they were getting themselves into, but we couldn’t have done it without their help!
As for getting around, my Spanish is still basic at best. I find that people here talk very fast and I’m often asking them to repeat themselves. I’ve also found that my dietary preferences have changed considerably, and my new favorite food is anything that I know the word for in Spanish. (Consequently I’ve been having a lot of café con leche!) I’ve also been putting the ICM to the test and trying my hand at learning more Spanish. After taking French for 8 years I was hoping I would be able to jump in with conversing with people, but sadly that’s not the case. I have been operating by the general rule of adding an A to any French word that ends with an E, but I’ve found that it works only about 50% of the time. It looks like I still have a lot more work to put in, but I think I’ll learn a lot by the end of this experience.