My visit this weekend reinforced the importance of keeping in touch with close friends. I enjoyed catching up with Bryn. We both agreed it had been too long since we had seen each other. We laughed and exchanged stories, hers about medical school and mine about school children.
I summoned all of my energy to go out and celebrate Bryn’s and Ben’s birthdays at a bar in Philadelphia. I was proudly introduced as Bryn’s friend from college who had driven all the way down from Massachusetts. I stayed up late, danced to the music, talked with Bryn’s friends over the music and saw Ben burn his finger in the processes of taking a flaming shot of liquor.
After sleeping in the next day and enjoying the breakfast that Ben made for all of us, Bryn and I headed back to Collingswood to relax for the afternoon. She showed me around a spacious park lined with mansions and filled with greenery. We walked around town and I bought a really pretty necklace and enjoyed some really tasty sushi. We shared a chicken tempura sushi that had a coconut sauce and mango on the top. We each had an additional roll. I had a shrimp tempura with tuna and mango. It was a great afternoon. We talked more about the next few years that lay ahead us. I explained that I would have the opportunity to travel abroad for six months with my graduate program in order to gain another perspective on development. We talked about long-term goals and short term and how we were both going to fit it all into our lives. Bryn explained that she will start her fourth year of medical school shortly and will have the flexibility to travel and practice medicine in various parts of the world. She mentioned going to Oregon and practicing rural medicine and then possibly going to Argentina.
I told Bryn that I was trying to learn Spanish, she has taken many years of it so he helped me practice. We discussed many words for vegetable and how to say that the cat wants melon, since we were eating melon and her cats were around.
We also had the chance to catch up on the past few years of life. Bryn showed me photos from her month spent in Nepal. How awe inspiring it was to see life on the other side of the world. Bryn is a constant inspiration to push myself further and get the most out of life. We chatted about how our families were doing, it was nice to hear how they are doing and share stories about my family.
Saturday night Bryn, Ben and I went to the Pop Shop in town. It was such a cute little diner. I ended up getting a dish called my private Idaho. It had tons of hash browns smothered in cheese and topped with sunny side up eggs. It was tasty but Bryn shared a couple of bites of her grilled cheese and that was to die for buttery tastiness. It was really generous of her to share. After dinner we headed to Rita's and I got Swedish Fish slush with vanilla soft serve on top. It was shocking how much the slush actually tasted like the candy!
Bryn, along with her boyfriend Ben told be about one of their female classmates that was helping out on a procedure on a male patient’s hip. The doctor in charge asked the girl if she could lift up the panis (the medical term for the fat that folds over on one’s stomach when one is overweight) The med student misheard the doctor and lifted up and held the penis up instead. I can only imagine the laughter that must have taken place that day, but did laugh myself as they told me the story.
It was a trip I will remember for a long time to come.
