A Catalan Lunch

Our professor Josep brought Renée and I out for a fabulous lunch in a town close to Barcelona. We went to a restaruant where they used an open fire oven to cook everything. Durring this time of year there is a traditional dish called Calçots. They are a winter Onion that are long and usually served with a dipping sauce. Normally people get together in large groups and cook the onions over a fire and then everyone sits around eating and talking. You pull off the outter leaves of the onion and then dip the insides into the sauce and eat it. They are quite delicious! Our professor also showed us how to make the traditional bread here. Pan con tomate.

First you cut the tomato in half then you rub it on the bread then add a little bit of olive oil. For a little more flair one can also rub a little bit of garlic. We had a wonderful time at lunch learning about catalan culture!

Thanksgiving

As one might think they do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Barcelona. Renée and I were not expecting to do much for dinner but we were surprised by Dr. José Manautou. He had come to Barcelona for a couple days to visit and got in contact with us. We went out to dinner at an amazing restaruant called Casa Alfonso. http://www.casaalfonso.com/ It has many classic Spanish dishes.

They have boards covered in different cheeses and cuts of the best meats, including the famous ham called jamón iberíco. That particular ham comes from pigs that are fed only acorns so the meat takes on a specific taste.

We had croquettes, tortillas with potato and the catalan bread with tomato. Dr. Manautou had liked the shirts that the servers were wearing and asked if they were for sale. The told him no but then brought us all aprons to have instead. It was a wonderful night and a great Thanksgiving.

Dinner

We went out to eat with one of the people from the lab and his friends. It was quite funny because it was an impromptu ´´bring your foreign exchange student night.´´ His friends brought two guys from Italy, one girl was from France, and another girl from Mexico. We ate inside a theater building and the atmosphere was great! However, the waiter forgot about us and our food did not come until 12am! But the wait was worth it because it was our first authentic meal in Barcelona because we had mostly been to tourist reastaurants prior to this. His friends were very friendly and we went to a bar afterward for a drink. The language barrier can be tough because they speak so fast and even if we somewhat understand the conversation, it is that much harder to understand jokes in a different language! I can barely understand jokes in English! So everyone was nice enough to translate the jokes for us so that we could join in on the laughter. Teegan and I had a great time with them and we hope to go to a concert with them later in the month. The place is called Razzmatazz and it is a concert venue that everyone raves about.

Sagrada Familia

The most sought after building that people go see in Barcelona is Gaudi´s Sagrada Familia. Gaudi is a famous artist that is from Spain and did much of his work in Barcelona and Paris. Sagrada Familia means, church of the holy family. The church monsters over all other buildings in the city and can be easily spotted in the city skyline because of it´s unique towers. There are twelve towers to represent the twelve apostles (all twelve towers are not fully completed). The church is one of the biggest modern-day construction projects, which began in 1882 with a completion date in 2026.

Inside the ground-level of the church was not as amazing as I was expecting because of all the construction. However, if you wait in line to take the elevator up... the sights are unbelievable!

It gives you the chance to be up-close with amazing architechure and the height lets you see the entire city! The walk down the Sagrada Familia was tight (literally). The narrow spiral staircase weaving in and out was very unique. I would highly recommend going up into the church and also sit in the park across the street to admire the building´s beauty.

Montserrat

Teegan and I went to Montserrat on Sunday. It is a monastery high up in the mountains and there are many religious and historical events that have been said to have happened there. One being the location of the Holy Grail! We took a train ride up the mountain to the monastery and went to the basilica (church).

We attended the Catholic mass which was all in Catalan and only understood when the people began shaking hands as we do ´´peace be with you.´´

There was some sort of parade while we were there with people dressed up as a donkey. We did not really understand it. There were children hearding the donkey around the area and a band of people behind making noise. It was very cute!

Then we went for a long hike up the mountain and the sites were amazing! The whole mountain was nothing but winding stairs. As we were walking up we saw a few people rock climbing up the highest parts of the mountain.

This is the view from a point almost at the top. We did not make it all the way because we ran out of time. We had to get back to the base before the last train left the mountain, otherwise we would have had to walk all the way down!

As you walk up the mountain there are shrines that you can stop and pray or look at. The one we found was not open when we got there but I did manage to take a picture. It is the shrine of Saint Jeroni.

To end the wonderful day, we left the top of the mountain via a gondola ride. I highly recommend that next year´s students go to Montserrat at least once! Teegan and I will likely return in the next couple of weeks. (Even though our legs are definately paying for our adventures today!)

Plaça España

On our first Friday in Barcelona our friend Elisabet brought us to the fontains in Plaça España. Every Friday they light the fountain up with lights that change color to the music that is played. The hight and patterns of the water also change. The water looks like it is dancing to the music. They have shows from about 7 to 9 every 15 minutes or so. Every show is a little different with different music playing. There were a lot of people there to watch at first but many of them left after the first show so it was easy to find a seat.

Behind the fountain is the National Museum of Catalan Art. It looks so beautiful at night. They have spotlights behind it that make it look like it belongs somewhere like disney world.

McDonald´s and the Spanish way of life!

As Americans we had to try McDonald´s and there is one right near our apartment. The best thing about the McDonald´s here is that there is not a drive-thru window for cars, but one for people on foot! The culture here is not about taking things ´´to go´´ but if you need to do so to say it in Spanish is ´´para llevar´´ (translation is to bring or carry). As for getting your morning coffee ´´to go´´ is non-existent unless you go to a Starbucks because the Spanish lifestyle is not rushed like ours in the states. So if you want a morning coffee you will have to sit down and RELAX! I am adjusting to the laid back lifestyle here. Usually I am a very time-oriented person, but this past weekend was the time change (one week ealier than in the states) and I forgot all about it until I noticed a clock in the metro showing an hour earlier! It feels good to not be checking a cellphone for the time or calls and for always checking e-mail.

apartment

Our apartment or piso is beginning to feel like home. We like everything about it except for the washing machine! We cannot figure it out because it will run for 12 hours or more if we do not stop it. I am not looking forward to seeing our water bill! We live really close to the school of pharmacy and walk the 15 minutes every morning. It is really refreshing not needing to use a car everyday. We cook in during the week because the grocery store food is relatively cheap compared to going out to eat.

Alcon and Expoquimia

We have been on two field trips with SDM.

On October 15th Albert invited us to go to visit the Alcon factory to see how big industry works. We got to see all of the equipment used to bottle label and mix different types of eye drops. There was one machine that had an arm that moved incredibly fast. It picked up tubes and placed them on a belt to be packaged. It was incredibly accurate at finding the tubes on the conveyor belt. I asked how it worked and I was told that invisible light was being shown from below the conveyor belt and the arm dectected where the light was being blocked and picked up the tube. At the end of the tour (which was entirely in spanish) we got to see the pharmacy museum at Alcon. In one room there were pharmacy books from all over the world. Some were very old. In another room they had an antique pharmacy. There were many drawers that contained different herbs that were used. They had old jars and morters and pestles. One of the most interesting things about the antique pharmacy was the paintings that were on all of the cabnets. Each painting contained a depiction of what was contained within the cabinet. Most of the paintings had animals which represented some sort of ailment or body part. For example, an elephant in the picture meant that the herbs in the cabinet could be used for memory. Neither Renée nor I had been in an industrial factory so the experience was great! We learned a lot about how the factory worked and how many people it takes to run one. We did not bring our camaras to Alcon because we were not sure if we would be able to use them.

The other field trip Renée and I took was to expoquimia on October 24th.

http://www.expoquimia.com/

It is a conference where companies bring their equipment and industries come to look and possibly buy new equipment. There were many different machines and products as well as companies there. There was equipment used for granulation, distillation, mixing, drying, coating, assembly, grinding, etc. There were eight areas total and the conference ran for four days.

This picture is of myself (Teegan), Elisabet, Albert, Natalia and Renée at the entrance to the Expoquimia.

There was a lot of equipment that I had never seen before such as this mixing machine:

We also saw a lot of equpiment that we used in SDM.


This is a sieve or Tamiz. We use sieves to preform particle size evaluations for SeDeMs. This one is a lot bigger than the ones we use in the lab.

A lot of the equpiment at the conference was for big industry, like this granulation machine.

We saw a lot of equipment that we would never have been exposed to if we had not gone to the expoquimia. We had a lot of fun watching all of the equiment in motion.

Differences

One funny thing about going abroad is that many things that are so simple at home are an adventure here. For instance, Teegan and I wanted to marinade some meat with a marinade or an Italian dressing... however, they do not have either of those things here! We ended up improvising with oil and balsamic vinegar. Also, we met a girl from the states who told us that her friend had bought fabric softener instead of laundry detergent. Teegan laughed, but then it dawned on me, that I think I had done the same thing haha! I had wondered why the laundry detergent was so different here and how it wasn´t cleaning my clothes well. Sure enough, I translated the writing on the bottle and I did the same thing haha. One challenging thing about Barcelona is that their primary language is not Spanish or as they call it Castellano, but is Catalan. Catalan is a lot different than Spanish! So reading labels in the supermarket is hard if it is only in Catalan. Again, Teegan bought a green bottle that was right next to the ketchup and mustard so we assumed it was relish... NOPE... it was some sort of barbeque sauce called brava! Another example of the language and cultural barrier was this restaurant we went to near our apartment. It was called BBQ chicken. So we were expecting chicken with barbeque sauce. However, the bbq stood for ´´best believable quality´´ chicken haha. I think it was a tourist trap of some sort and even though there was no barbecue sauce... the chicken was what they had said... very good quality.

Even the birds here are different. Instead of seeing the normal chick-a-dees and robins there are green parrots everywhere. They do have pigeons though. One of which attacked the back of Teegan's shoe when she was sitting eating lunch.

Welcome to SDM

Welcome to SDM! There is a door in the SDM laboratory. It divides the rooms used for liquid preparations from the rooms used for solids. Its is to prevent contamination from either side. There is a sensor about knee high that detects if your standing there but you have to be carefull because the sensor sometimes sends the signal slower than the door closes!

These are a couple of the girls with whom Renée and I work. On the left is Natalia and in the middle is Elisabet. Everyone here is very friendly and helpfull! Most of the people here are about our age and are either still in school or are newly out and working in the laboratory.

Renée and I have been learning to use a lot of the equpiment in SDM. This is a tablet compressor or ¨Comprimidora¨. We use it to test how hard we can make a tablet. It is really difficult to get the proper parameters needed especially when you are manually filling the matrix (the hole where the powder goes). The weight is the hardest thing to control especially when the powder does not flow well. We always feel like mechanics when we use the comprimidora because you need to use a few different wrenches to put the machine together and to adjust anything.

We preform other tests on our samples. Here Renée is by the higroscopy test. We put the powder on a watch glass and let it sit in high humidity conditions for 24 hours. We then weigh the powder and see how much water it absorbed. A good formulation absorbs less than 3%. In spain they call a watch glass a vidrio de reloj. Reloj can be translated to clock in english. When we first used this our mentor Josep called it a clock glass and we thought it was funny. I am sure that we do the same thing or worse when we try and speak to them in spanish.

In the afternoons we work with Albert on his projects. He has two major projects and with one of them we were helping him with Quality Assurance. Here Renée is testing the speed of dissolution. It is very tricky because the tablets all start disolving at the same time.

Another test we preformed was done to test stablility. We crushed the tablet and put it in a machine that exposed the powder to extreme heat for 15 minutes. We then weighed the powder and looked to see how much water was lost. A good formulation should not lose more then 3% of its water.

The machine I am using is used to test the friability of the tablets to see if they will be durable enough to withstand coating and normal wear and tear of processing. Renée is testing the hardeness or ¨duresa¨of the tablets to make sure that the tablets in each batch have similar hardnesses. The hardness is also important for the speed of dissolution.

Over all we are gaining a lot of knowledge about the industry side of pharmacy. We appreciate how much work goes into formulating tablets. It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare a tablet with the best parameters.

The Fluid Bed

This is a video explaining how we are using the ¨Fluid Bed¨ It is one of the machines that we use with Albert.

Things to know about Barcelona

Finding a flat in Barcelona was difficult for us. We were nervous about sending money to people we did not know and signing a lease for a place we had never seen before. Many people sent us links to hostels and sites for apartments. The one we felt most comfortable using was the Barcelona housing Service for Students (BHSS) website: www.bcn-housing-students.com. We looked at the addresses and prices to find the closest and least expensive flat we could find. We used mapquest to see how far away the flats were from the pharmacy building. There were some that were reasonably priced but we waited longer than we should have to sign up so we were stuck with a more expensive 3 bedroom apartment. The big upside to it is that it is about 15 minutes walking distance to the school. I sugest registering with the site as soon as you can and getting your personal code then actually applying for the flat you want in the 20 day period prior to arrival. After they approve your flat you will need to have a letter from the Univeristy of Barcelona saying that you are affiliated, a copy of your passport, as well as payment ready to fax to the school within 48 hours of the conformation. As long as you get these ready in advanced it should be no problem. Also be prepared to pay the full rent for the 3 months you are there as well as a 1 month deposit which will be used to pay for your utilities durring your stay. Any money that is not used up by the utilities will be returned to you.

When we arrived in Barcelona we simply grabbed a taxi from outside of the airport and told them to go to BHSS's address, which can be found on their webiste. After signing the lease the landlords gave us the keys and the address, along with a map. We got another cab to our apartment and went over everything inside with our landlords. The place is beautiful. It was even nicer than the pictures that they had on the website and there was hot water and the beds are actually quite comfortable.

One large challenge Renée and I had after we arrived in Barcelona was communication through the internet and telephone. Neither of us had a telephone that worked in Spain and our flat did not have internet.

The people in our lab were very helpful. They showed us where the public computers are in the school and they told us where we could get a phone that would work in spain. I had brought a hand held web browser hoping to use a free wiifi connection. I had assumed that one could use the wireless connections at the school or at any Starbucks. In order to use the wireless at the school one needs to be a student enrolled at the University of Barcelona. The starbucks here do not have wireless either. While we were wandering one night we found a coffee shop in Las Ramblas that had Wiifi but were unable to find it again when we went back.

Getting a telephone was very easy. On Diagonal ave (the main street in Barcelona) there is a store called Vodafone. Renée and I bought a phone with a prepaid sim card for about 29 euro. The cheapest way we found to call home was to buy an international phone card. There are pay phones everywhere in Barcelona that the cards can be used on. 6 euro gets you about 50 minutes of talk time to the United States. The only challenging part is finding a pay phone that is not on a busy street.

Getting around the city is very easy. There are trams, busses and the Metro that goes everywhere you would want to go. They are very clean and easy to use. I suggest getting a metro map when you can so that people can point out the good stops for you to explore. Maria Cristina or Palau Reial are the closest stops to the Pharmacy Building. There is a nice mall at the L´Illa tram stop on Diagonal that has a lot of things that you may need. The Corte de Ingles is also on Diagonal and throughout the city but contains more expensive stores that other smaller stores. There is an easy to reach beach at Vila Olímpica that is nice to visit. For a large turist area Catalunya or Liceu are good places to start.

Over all we are now getting to know the area around our flat very well. The area seems safe and we hope to go to a futból game soon. Especially since the FC Barcelona stadium is only a 5 minute walk from our apartment!

Start to the Barcelona Rotation

This blog has been started a little later than planned due to lack of interent access and time constraints.

Renée and I (Teegan) arrived in Barcelona on Friday the 3rd of October, 2008. We arrived at separate times which made signing the lease a little dificult especially since it was all in spanish. The landlords were very nice but did not speak any english so we tried our best to communicate to eachother at the piso though pointing and picture drawing. The flat is much nicer than Renée and I had expected. Everything was very clean and the area around the appartment building is very pretty.

Our first week at SDM (the lab) consisted of reading papers (mostly in spanish) meeting people, and learning how to use all the equipment. SDM is hired by small industrial drug companies to formulate drugs. These small companies do not have the facilities to do so themselves. They try to make formualtions more cost effective while still having the same properties and release profiles as the original formulation. We learned how to preform SeDeM using different excipients. We learned how to determine the angle of repose, bulk density, flowability, tablet compression, etc. At the end of our first week Josep set Renée and I up with our own project to work on for the following month.

In our afternoons we work with Albert and Natalia. We usually follow Albert around and help him make tablets and test them. He taught us how to use Karl Fischer to determine the moisture content of a tablet. We have also been preforming quality control for the tablet formulation he is workin on. Natalia has been showing us how to make disintegrating tablets which have been quite a challenge due to the level of hardness that is desired.

A lot of the concepts we have learned are being reinforced by the laboratory equipment and techniques we use daily in the lab.