#Healthy Cafe Limerick

[umichenginabroad]

Week 2 in Limerick

Hey everyone, it's Katie again. I'm posting late because I got a really nasty case of food poisoning that I've had to deal with, which unfortunately also means I don't have as much to talk about from this past week in Limerick, but I'll cover what I did do so you can still get a feel for my time here.

Monday: Last Monday was the only day last week I felt healthy enough to go to lab. In the morning, my mentor, Nina, showed me some modifications she made to the set up steps for the hydrothermal carbonizer, since it seemed to be having issues with heating and cooling. Basically, I was told to increase the temperature gradually and watch the data to make sure the internal temperature did not exceed 200 Celsius. In the afternoon, Nina and I tried to run the HTC with a water sample, but the device was still having issues, so she had to call her supervisor and another lab technician for help. They were all speaking Polish, so I had no idea what was going on until Nina took me to another building to find another HTC. Unfortunately, those were all broken or missing parts, which leaves her device as the only HTC we can use. It's a little frustrating, but I'm fine with working together with Nina instead of on a separate experiment since it's still a great learning experience for me. After work, I did some laundry, then went to the second half of the Mario movie (I missed the first part finishing my laundry and then trying to find the place it was at).

Saturday: I was feeling better (or so I thought), so the Arcadia group and I tried to go to Galway, but we needed to buy tickets in advance, so that was a bust. Instead, we got a quick lunch and took the bus to Killaloe, a small lakeside town in Clare. We walked around a bit, then lay in the grass by the river for a little while to enjoy the sun. I guess I enjoyed the sun too much, because I ended up very dehydrated and had to take a pit stop at cafe to rehydrate. The rest of the group got a quick snack before the bus came, and then we went back to UL. It sucked that I was feeling sick towards the end, but Killaloe was such a cute little town with a very pretty view, so I'm glad I got to see it.

Monday: After literally sleeping all day Sunday to recover from Saturday, I decided I ought to get my stomach issues checked out, so I went to the University Hospital Limerick Monday afternoon. Once I was checked in, their nurses came to take my vitals and get blood tests done, and then gave me vials to, delicately put, "collect my own samples." A fun thing about sleeping all day is you often forget to drink water, so I had a needle in my left hand the whole time I was there so that they could administer rehydration fluid through an IV. If you've never had one before, it's interesting because you can feel the coldness in your veins nearest the injection site, but it definitely gets the job done and made me feel so much better. Afterwards, I was discharged with a new appointment scheduled for Wednesday morning to get my test results back.

I'll leave you with a few notes from today: The doctor's appointment went fine, they determined that the issues were caused by campylobacter, but my blood test that morning showed lower infection markers and I was clearly feeling better, so I should be getting back to my regular study abroad life soon. Can't wait to update you about the (rest of) this week, I promise it'll be really cool and won't involve needles in my hands.

[theellenflynn-blog]

"Sodalicious" gives the best Breakfast in Limerick. Mouthwatering bread and scones fresh out of the oven from 8 am every morning. Welcome to Sodalicious, Limerick’s home of soda bread and scones. It also contains sodium bicarbonate which aids digestion.