The City of Brotherly Love

I'm back from Philly!  And full of inspiration and motivation!  I got to hear some amazing talks from some of the most famous people in the field of cancer metastasis and I cannot tell you how in awe I was at the amount of work that they have contributed.  It makes me want to get right down to business so that in 30 years I can be the one standing up there inspiring new, young scientists.  My poster session also went very well.  I was somewhat nervous, but after the first few people came by with their questions I got into a groove.  People seemed pretty impressed with what I have accomplished so far and were very encouraging to keep going in the direction I had planned.  There were a couple people that even asked me for advice on their projects given what I had found in my experiments!  Overall it was a great experience for my first scientific conference.  And I am already looking forward to the next one I get to go to!

Aside from the conference however, I would like to say that Philadelphia seems to be a pretty cool city.  While our schedule was extremely packed, my boss and I did sneak out for lunch 2 days and dinner every night.  Though we didn't get to do any real site-seeing, walking to and from the hotel and restaurants was great.  I miss being a big city, and Philly is really pretty.  I can definitely imagine myself living there...hmmm...maybe for a post-doc position.....

Anyway, both my boss and I love to eat and were so thrilled to find out that it was restaurant week in Philly!!  This meant that all the really nice restaurants were doing 3 course meals for $35 ($20 for lunch).  Needless to say I had some AMAZING food, seriously they have awesome restaurants.  I had real Philly cheesesteak, the best Italian outside of Italy, Indian, great seafood, and so much more.  And I am not going to lie I have not had a bite to eat since my last lunch there yesterday afternoon, I am still that full.  I am thinking a trip back to Philadelphia is in order with the simple schedule of site seeing and eating.  Anyone want to meet me in Philly??

via