Porto: Day 3

Okay, so I'm a little bit drunk right now, here's why:

My mother, because she is super cool, got invited to go on a boat cruise with Aesku, some diagnostic company or other, and on this boat cruise there are wine glasses at every plate, and guess what! They are bottomless. Repeat: BOTTOMLESS. This is why I should go into the medical field, no?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day started on a rather unusual note. Not unusual as in; I'm in a foreign country, but unusual in the sense that when I'm traveling with my mother and stepfather, I'm usually the last to get up in the morning, to the annoyance of Kenn (stepfather). This fateful morning, I got up before Kenn. Turns out, he double drugged himself last night with Ambien and Alkeselzer Cold Plus, on accident, so he says. Regardless, I had to practically drag him out of bed, meaning we didn't get going until around noon. Even then, we still had a full day.

It started with my mom's poster presentation. This paragraph is mostly for Jamie, btw. In this Autoimmune International Congress, they have a special room for research posters, about 150 total, and my mom's was one of them, hence us being there. Despite the fact that she was only 1 in 150, her poster drew a lot of attention. People asked for references. She is now being convinced by another diagnostic company (Inova) that she needs to be in Barcelona this November. Poor Susan, right? Pshh.

So I'm with my mom in this huge old Portuguese customs building being used for the congress and we go into one of the presentation rooms where a bunch of companies have set up booths for whatever it is they are trying to market. My mom recognizes someone from the last congress, a man from Biotene. He is marketing this line of oral products such as toothpaste, mouth gel, mouth wash, etc. The target of his company is to sooth patients that are put on medication which create painful oral problems, but he insisted that even the average American should not be using toothpaste as it is sold to us today. The scoop he gives is that regular toothpaste that the average American uses is basically detergent, that's why you're supposed to rinse after brushing. With his toothpaste, you don't have to rinse. He gave me a trial kit and I'm going to try it out. Then he sees that I am holding a plastic bottle of water and proceeds to lecture me and my mom about how drinking/consuming anything out of plastic, especially bottled water, is bad for you. He told us about this study that is reported in October/November of National Geographic 2006 about a study done 25 years ago of male college students' sperm count compared to a recent study on the same test group and the results are like black and white, the sperm count is significantly lower today, and that's not just plastic but other factors too such as microwaves, etc. Apparently if a plastic container is heated for frozen before you consume it's contents, it's bad for you due to chemicals that are released. It may seem from this paragraph that this man is kinda crazy, but that's just my summation, he was actually quite convincing. Of course, none of what he says has yet to be proven, but how else can you account for such a dramatic difference in sperm count? What kind of havoc would be wreaked if someone were to take on the plastic industry? Food for thought.

After this circus, Kenn and I only had time for a couple of cervejas before meeting up with my mom and our friend Jennifer for a port wine tasting and eventual boat cruise with Aesku, as I mentioned before. Might I just say, I don't care much for port wine. It is far too sweet, a desert wine, blach. Luckily at dinner they served pinot as an alternative. On the cruise, which went up and down the Douro river, my parents, Jennifer, and I had to suffer through the music of pan pipe renditions of My Heart Will Go On and Let It Be and Hotel California and so forth. Eventually (this was a 3 hour boat cruise) a woman started to sing along with the music. At least then it was in Portuguese, sometimes in Spanish. Nonetheless, the volume was deafening, but the Europeans seemed to enjoy it.

Tomorrow I really shall go to the Porto museum of modern art, if all goes well. I apologize if any of this blog sounds arrogant, like I said, I'm still a bit tipsy, I probably had at least four glasses of wine :)