Philadelphia

This last weekend found me in Philadelphia for a job interview with Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar (http://www.qatar-med.cornell.edu/). It was a busy weekend. I got up at 4 on Saturday morning, and went to the airport, flying out at 6.30 am. If you wonder, I took all hand luggage, so I didn't have to spend time getting luggage or checking it. I flew to Houston, had time for a quick lunch, then flew to Philadelphia. I got to Philadelphia at 6pm local time, and was at my hotel by 7. I walked around for a little bit, as we were right next to a lot of famous things, and then I got some food to take back to my room.

Sunday morning found me trying to wake up with a lot of coffee, because Arizona is 3 hours behind the East Coast. Fortunately, my interview wasn't until 11.30am, so I had some time. I arrived at my interview location, but I didn't get the full time to speak with the hiring committee. The previous person ran late, so I only got 20 minutes! I did the best I could, though, and will follow up with a couple more points in my thank you letter. The committee was also apologetic that I was cut short. I am hoping, though, that I sufficiently impressed the group so that I may have another opportunity to speak with them in Doha.

After spending a bit of time in the exhibits, I changed clothes and went for a walk. First I went to a bookstore, and purchased something to read for the plane ride home (silly me, I only took one book and went right through it). Then, I walked to the Independence Mall, where Independence Hall is located. As there were a heap of people, I couldn't get a ticket to go in, but I looked around the outside.

They are excavating where George Washington's house used to be, so I got to see the site. Just that morning, there was an article in the Philadelphia Enquirer about this. The big news is that people are seeing where there were slave tunnels in the house, so they could go about the house unseen by people. So some racial history is being unearthed, and there are mixed reactions to this. (http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=1194976E3A5CE330&p_docnum=1)

It was interesting to walk around Philadelphia. In some ways, it was like being back in Japan, with all the tall buildings and people. There was a lot of cultural and ethnic diversity you don't find in Arizona. I've always said this, but I got to Arizona thinking I would find cultural diversity. Yet all I see here is white people. It's kind of boring. I really enjoyed being on the East Coast, and would consider working there.

I walked quite a bit on Sunday, and was tired afterwards.

Monday I got up and went to the US Mint. That was really fun, seeing how our money is produced. Then I walked to the train station and got on the train to go to Newark. I had to fly out of Newark this time. The airport was extremely busy, and it took at least 30 minutes to go through the x-ray interrogation. It's interesting that my flight took off an hour and a half late, yet we still arrived on time in Tucson. That was kind of cool.

I'm working on posting some photos to my Flickr! account.