Happy national chocolate covered raisin day!

Let me see. I guess I will do some weekend updates. Friday night we had dinner at Sidecar (chili, nachos and carnitas all half price) and then played Rock Band/Guitar Hero at Dan's. Matty has fallen completely in love with the chili at Sidecar. He wont stop talking about it in fact. I admit that it was pretty awesome. Especially half priced for happy hour. I think I am just tired of hearing about it.

Saturday, instead of letting me sleep in as promised we got up and met with some friends from Pittsburgh. They were visiting a friend of their's who was celebrating Match. Said friend doesnt like Philly and doesnt really know Philly, so we became tour guides for the day. We started in the Italian Market which was nice since Matty and I rarely go down there. Then we walked up to Sarcone's for lunch. Mmmmmm. . . . Sarcone's . . . . Mmmmmm . . . . drooling just thinking about it. After lunch we walked up to South and wandered "South Street" for a bit and then headed to the river. The weather was ok, a bit chilly in the shade, but sunny at least. I mean not spring weather, but not too cold. We headed up through Society Hill and into Old City and stopped for a drink (or a few) at National Mechanics. They have iTunes DJ running which is way cool. So since Matty has his iPhone, we could all vote for what to play, for free. So that was cool. I tried the Original Sin cider. Which, if you like apple juice is perfect for you. It tastes exactly like apple juice. Except it is 6% alcohol.

The rest of the evening was orchestrated by the med school friend, so not quite me and Matty's scene. After a bit of a side trip we all ended up at Black Sheep for dinner. We hadnt been, so Matty got to try somewhere new. I was fairly impressed with their beer list. I HATE that prices aren't listed though. HATE that. But everything we ended up with was in the $4-$5.50 range which wasnt bad. I was pretty disappointed with the food though. The burger I ordered rare was medium-well at best. The pulled pork was overly sweet in my opinion. But I am picky about bbq sauce. So that is just a personal preference. But the burger, that is disappointing. The fries were good. Everyone else seemed to like their meals. After dinner we went to Fado for drinks. It was absolutely packed with young drunk obnoxious "fratty" types. It was loud. And dark. So we all stood in a corner and had our overpriced drinks and tried not to go to the bathroom (to avoid the vomit). Finally we left and went to meet other med students. At a wine bar. A really nice restaurant and wine bar (which we werent dressed for) called Di Vino. It used to be Valentino's. It is adorable and the menu looks delicious. But it was closing 5 minutes after we arrived. It is a tiny little space (there were 8 of us) and we had all been drinking beer (or cider) all night. So yeah. We waited until her friends (who were getting the check when we arrived) left. And then she left with them to go to a party in the Art Museum area that we werent invited to. I went home because I was tired and had had enough. Matty went with everyone else back to Dan's for Rock Band.

Sunday we made breakfast (egg, sausage and potato sandwiches) then ran some errands. We are still looking for a tea kettle.

Yesterday, Lenka (the other GGR grad student in our lab) successfully defended. So she is now Dr. Yunk. One more defense in May (our MD-PhD student) and then me.