Gordo the Explorer (While Carrie plays Robots)

Alarm went off early this morning but thankfully both of us were awake a few minutes before.  Our room is nice and quiet as well as dark.  This is due to the fact that we an internal "view" of a wall. No complaints here though.  Carrie got up and got ready to attend her first day of the conference while I decided to lay in bed and scroll social media for a bit.

After Carrie left, I figured it was probably time to get up and get moving after losing an hour due to the dreaded scrolling.  My day was going to be an exciting one, left all to my own devices to go off and explore London.  So what did I do?  Headed to the laundromat of course!  Off for a 15 minute rather steamy walk to the closest laundromat.  Thankfully it was nice and quiet with only an older Aussie couple in there.  So I sat down and start compiling a list of stats for the trip so far.  You will all get to read these at the end of the trip (lucky you!).

At the laundromat there was a middle aged man who was obviously doing washing for the first time.  He walked in, looked around, opened the door at the back of the place and started calling out for someone.  The Aussie guy said to him that the guy in the shop next door could help him as he was the owner.  So he disappeared next door into the shop and came back with the owner. The owner told him to stick his clothes in the machine and that he had to get back to the shop and walked off.  So he turns around and starts asking me for help with the machine.  Language was a bit of a barrier here but we managed to sort it out.  So he disappeared again while his machine was washing and came back to shift his stuff to the dryer.  Same thing again.  Looks at me, shrugs his shoulders and asks for help with this.  We managed to sort it out again.  Apparently I looked like I knew what I was doing, because another younger guy came in and asked for help with his washing machine also. He was English and could read the signs though.  So apparently if you need help with your washing, I'm your girl! I might add that to my resume, I had never seen these machines in my life either. and had to figure it out all by myself, haha.

Washing done, walked back to the hotel in the rain, unable to see where I was going properly due to said rain on glasses and my hands full of washing. Got back to the hotel and dried off (yes I had my rain jacket on) and decided to go and have a coffee in coffee shop downstairs at hotel until it stopped raining.

Finally had a little break in the rain and headed out to get some lunch and go for a bit of a walk.  With no plans in place I just started walking and ended up at The Mall and Buckingham Palace after a nice walk through St James' Park. Went for a little wander around, went fancy car shopping (window of course) and then ended up back at the hotel. It has been drizzling most of the day today, so quite steamy.

Carrie attended the first day of the ERUS 25 - 22nd Meeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section in London, being held at our hotel Park Plaza Westminster Bridge.  So very handy that I could roll out of bed, shower and then head downstairs.  I arrived just before 0800 and it was filled with lots of attendees.  I believe it was over 1000 delegates from all over the world - doctors, nurses, med students and company reps.  There was at least 7 different robots on show (including the 2 robots we have at Calvary (Da Vinci and HUGO RAS).  There was a Swiss robot, Chinese robot and Japanese robot (some were basically reverse engineered on the Da Vinci).  I then entered the main room to listen to the Welcome speech and then onto the first of the live surgery - there were 3 cases being performed and there were 3 massive screens showing the cases.  The surgeons were wired up while operating talking through the cases to the room of conference attendees.  As attendees we collected headsets as we walked in the room.  These headsets were like 'silent disco' headsets and you could choose from 3 colours (blue, red & green) which then co-ordinated with which colour matched with the screens.  It was all very well organised.  Each case performed was with a different robot type and operation.    

After lunch, it was onto the nurse section of the conference and I listened to presentations on the lack of training around robotics surgery, especially around emergency incidents.  It has definitely given Carrie some ideas on what to do when she's back at work to implement for the robotic team.

Day 2 tomorrow is hands on nursing training.  

After Carrie returned from the conference, we headed out for a bit of a walk around for Carrie to stretch her legs.  We found a pub (of course) and had some dinner and a glass of wine. After this we went for a walk, wandered into Trafalgar Square and then headed back to the hotel as we could see the weather starting to make its way in again.