Philadelphia 2018

I have to say, I haven't made it back to a lot of the cities I thought I would have by now, but I've also revisited a surprising amount of cities that I wasn't planning on either. One of those is definitely Philadelphia. For the record, I like Philly. It's got a nice East Coast jive and I have good memories there.

The first being when Jayna and I visited in on Martin Luther King Day in January 2011 or 2012 (can't remember anymore!) and then visited Sri a time or two with Palak when he was attending Wharton and Palak was living in Baltimore and I was still in NYC. And I returned again in 2018 on behalf of work to attend the NAFSA conference.

I already knew NAFSA was going to be fun - it's kinda like the annual reunion of all global partners in this industry, so I was really excited to see everyone again... the contact for the French fair I attended in Paris in January, some of the agents I met with in Frankfurt in February, my trip leaders from the India tour in April, and even my friend from my San Diego days, Chrishon. But it even went beyond that... I was running into old coworkers I wasn't even expecting to see, and between evening receptions, meetings around the center, working the Expo Hall and attending sessions, the week was jam packed and was both exhausting and fast! But, it was great. Plus, I got to spend the first night meeting up with my old coworker Sara, whom I used to share an office with at Columbia. She's completely unconnected to the NAFSA work but is doing her PhD at Penn and it was such a joy to see her again!

Watching The Disaster Artist on the plane
for like the 50th time while on a plane!

Philly Philly!

Finally back in the land of my favorite Yuengling!

AJ's people!

Worked the UC booth and got to scope out
our sister schools' swag LOLOLOL

Was more impressive than the famous LOVE

BMI Brazil party... was diggin the sax player-
he was so into it!

Jessica and one of our Peruvian partners

One too many dirty martinis led to this photo

The great ol' LOVE sign

It's funny to see the booths bring out their A
game... in the scheme of the Expo Hall, the cardboard
Queen was pretty low, but it was my personal favorite!

The first Goose Island Brewery
outside of Chicago was here in
Philly, and this Juliet sour was
A-MAZING!!

At the Ben Franklin museum - how cute is this?!

MIND YOUR BUSINESS!

BIRTHDAY CAKE ICE CREAM

I could have done without a trip to the Liberty Bell, but
Chrishon hadn't been and she humored me with the Ben Franklin
museum so had to do it again... and it was fun!!

I was so torn up after this trip! Insane blisters (heels on day 1? Rookie mistake!) Spent a night or two with too many drinks which led to some regurgitated Philly cheesesteak in the morning, but all in all had such a great time on the wonderful East Coast seeing my old friends and getting to do some really productive work at the same time.