When in Philadelphia

With the end of my school days approaching quickly, I’ve been exploring (read: stressing over) what “the next step” in my optometry-career journey will be. On Tuesday, I had an interview at Salus in Pennsylvania. Luckily, Jay was able to go with me, so we left Reesie with our neighbors, packed up our rental car and made the six hour drive to Philadelphia. The drive was long, but stress-free other than running into traffic around New York city. It was dark by the time we made it to our hotel, so there wasn’t much sight-seeing to be had. We ended up checking into our hotel and then going to dinner at Koba, a Korean BBQ restaurant.

After dinner, we went on a little recon mission to the campus & clinic to make sure I knew exactly how to get there the following morning. I’m so glad we did that because it made the morning of the interview less stressful.

Salus campus is beautiful; and The Eye Institute (the school-affiliated clinic) just underwent an $11.2M renovation last year, and is impressive in its own right.

I think the interview went well. At least I hope it went well. There wasn’t much time to playback (read: overanalyze or obsess over) the day’s events, because we needed to hit the road before knock-off traffic started – but not before grubbin’ on proper Philly cheesesteaks.

The last time we were in Philadelphia several years ago was with John & Julie. At that time, we tried cheesesteaks from Geno’s and Pat’s, and we unanimously decided that we preferred Pat’s.

How awesome is that sign? Of course, I’m totally intimidated by the entire ordering process, so I made Jay order for me. I loved watching them in action through the peek-a-boo window.

It wasn’t long before we were grubbin’ on our Philly Steaks “wit whiz.”

We each devoured an entire sandwich. Don’t judge us.

As we were merrily munching, a lady pulled up alongside the curb and asked me & the lady in pink (look over Jay’s right shoulder), if Pat’s or Geno’s was truly better. Considering I was sitting in front of Pat’s inhaling cheesy, meaty goodness plopped into an 8″ piece of bread, I’d have to say: Pat’s, hands-down.

Let’s just say that Geno’s needs those fancy signs & bright lights. To be fair, I’m sure the five souls sitting outside of Geno’s would probably disagree. Don’t take my word for it though, if you find yourself in Philly head to Pat’s and Geno’s (located directly across the street from each other) to participate in the friendly (hopefully) rivalry, and decide for yourself!