Friends who've known me longer

Wednesday through Sunday was the annual AAO conference. This year it was held in Tampa. You know what means... out of town friends coming to see me !! YAY !!

It's always nice when friends from back home come to visit, even if it's not directly to see me per se.

Thursday night I'd arranged dinner for two of my classmates and their husbands to meet me for dinner after their CE was over for the day. I met up with two of them and the other two were AWOL, no one had heard from them. Luckily, on the way out of the hotel we ran into another classmate and her friend so we dragged them into my car and out to dinner.

In true Tampa tradition we went to the Columbia restaurant. It's a Spanish and Cuban food restaurant that's been in Tampa since 1905. They have flamenco shows and really killer sangria. We opted out of the dancing in lieu of chatting, catching up on what's going on with other classmates, and a LOT of laughing. It was so great to see people who've known me longer than 2 years. Really fun.

It turns out Coopervision was sponsoring a dinner at the same restaurant that night. I ran into three professors. One acted like he had better places to be when I was chatting with him, when I had him as an attending three times and did two research studies with him. Huh. Then, I ran into two profs who are husband and wife (anyone who's been to UHCO knows who I mean) and they were lovely. They always are. Mrs Dr P even remembered to ask about my doggie. :)

I have pictures of the evening that I'll post when I get home. Srihari emailed them to me. Thanks Srihari !! (he's now a prof at PCO and I'm SO happy for him ! He was a grad student while I was at UHCO)