My Medical Grand Tour, Part 2 of 4

Click here for Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4.

Traveling for residency interviews offered a great excuse to save money and reconnect by staying with friends and family.


The weather in Pittsburgh, PA, was mild enough to enjoy the shops and lights in the Squirrel Hill neighbor-hood one evening. Dinner was sushi and seaweed, since Dear Husband doesn't eat it. After my interview, I snapped this view of the Cathedral of Learning. I bounced back to Baltimore and then to Pittsburgh again. I would like to think I made friends with a certain Milton Tiberius Cat, although he probably would have liked me better if I had known how to feed him breakfast.

I had brunch with a sleepy
tabby while back in
Urbana, IL, one weekend.

Back in Baltimore I had another first, visiting the grave of Edgar Allan Poe at Westminster Hall, within sight of the University of Maryland Medical Complex. He was (re)buried there with his cousin/wife, Virginia, and his aunt/mother-in-law, Maria, in 1875. A UMMC physician has written a whole book of "medical history mysteries," including the mysterious death of this famous author.

The week of Thanksgiving I went to Cincinnati, OH, to stay with my in-laws and to interview there. I helped our niece and nephew decorate gingerbread cookies. Here are representative samples; Santa's first name is Bob, and the martial arts student's name is Joohnny-Son [sic]. For the holiday, Dear Husband joined us, and we went for a walk around Sharon Lake.

Back in Boston, MA, I was under the weather, which was rainy. Dear Husband and I stayed connected while I was gone by drinking our way through an Advent calendar of tea. Here's orange pekoe black tea and an egg for breakfast before flying off to the next place.