Written by Jasmeen Kaur

June 10, 2018: Fourth Week at Villaviciosa

The best part of working at IPLA is the independence of conducting the experiments at my own pace. My mentor Dr. Susana Delgado has been really patient with me while I try to overcome the language barriers. After having a couple weeks of experience and working on guided procedures, now I am totally comfortable preforming them on my own. Every other week my research group has a presentation about the progress of their research and experiments. These presentations are very helpful in understanding the challenges, overcoming them, and recognizing the results. Although I struggle to understand them since they all speak in Spanish, however on the bright side I have been picking up some Spanish and it is getting easier. The first experiment we conducted to check the microbial load of the whey sample was successful and showed the expected results. We came up with the best strategy and conditions to treat it.

After working all week long in the laboratory, we were finally looking forward for the weekend and chose to visit Ribadesella. Ribadesella is a small town in Asturias, 50 minutes away from our research institute. We decided to spend our Sunday in this town. It is absolutely mesmerizing. It has serene mountains, beautiful beaches, impeccable food, and life is so laid back and relaxing. There weren’t lot of people in the town, nobody was in rush, so the whole experience was very unwinding. This town has Spain’s most magnificent prehistoric cave art, Cueva de Tito Bustillo. There are pretty plazas, narrow streets, and heavenly fresh sea food. This little town is perfect for strolling, surfing, kayaking, and outdoor excursions into Picos de Europa mountains. We liked it so much that we actually are planning to visit this town again sometime next month.