Today was amazing! After yet another delicious breakfast at the hotel, we hopped on a bus to a beautiful hospital located right on the beach, Hospital Gorliz. There, we got to here a presentation on an introduction to the hospital, which is primarily for rehabilitation, primarily for stroke patients. We got to ask a lot of meaningful questions to the different nurses and staff of the hospital about the differences between Bilbao and America in terms of their healthcare system, and it was fascinating to learn about the differences, most prominently in the affordability of healthcare in Spain vs. in the U.S., and how there is no difference in care based on how much insurance can pay for in Spain. After the presentation, we got an amazing tour of the hospital by our wonderful nurse tour guide and a nursing student at the hospital, who showed us all the nooks and crannies of the hospital, including the Oreka-Balance machine that we learned about yesterday, the patient rooms, nurses station, and the physical therapy area where patients who were recovering were doing various exercises with the many physical therapists that were at the hospital. After the tour, we bid our farewells to the wonderful staff and took a beautiful walk along the coast towards the neighboring town, Plentzia for some lunch, which was delicious. After lunch we took the train back to the hotel and grabbed some quick gelato before some much needed downtime before dinner.
After our downtime, we took a walk down to a restaurant for a group dinner, including some delicious appetizers, fantastic entrees, and cheesecake for dessert. The cheesecake did provide for quite some entertainment during our dinner, as they handed out all the cheesecakes and then took them all away from us, before giving them back 15 minutes later. While slightly melted, it was still delicious and was definitely a great group memory for us on the trip. Dinner went pretty late, so we headed straight back to the hotel to get some sleep for the next day. Overall, it was a great day in Spain!