Back to my old haunts....

So on Thursday night I drove up to Detroit as I had an "audition day" at one of the derm programs there. This is the one with the attending who picked on of last year's residents based on the sole fact that he had the best shoes of any of the applicants….So I wore my favorite BCBGs….

I got to stay with my friend Rana, who was in my class at AZCOM. It was so good to get to see her again, and we stayed up wayyy too late Thursday night, talking. Then I went to my audition day on Friday, which was surprisingly fun. I say surprisingly, as it's one of the typical (that is to say, non-academic) D.O. derm programs that I wasn't at all interested in until I visited. The residents and the attending (who was quite the character) were all so nice, and made me feel so welcome. So now it's definitely on my program-radar, but it would mean never getting a serious academic appointment anywhere, and it's not really a very academic program (and thus would mean being asked for the rest of my career "You trained where???")….

Friday night we went with a group of interns from Rana's hospital to an Oktoberfest (yes, in September) in the unmistakably German town of Frankenmuhl, MI. I remember hearing of my Swiss grandparents going to all kinds of polka festivals, and that's pretty much what this was. Well, that, and a lot of beer drinking by little men wearing lederhosen. Seriously, it was so fun. I wasn't brave enough to get up and try polka-ing, but it was fun to watch the cute little old couples all dressed up in their traditional German costumes.

This wasn't one of them, but you get the idea:

There were several different polka bands, and for the most part the music all sounded the same to me, except when one innovative band managed to turn the "Boot Scootin' Boogie" into a polka, and all the people in their lederhosen were out there dancing to it. There simply aren't words…..

I can't speak for our entire group, but for me the absolute highlight of the night was when the band started playing "The Chicken Dance" (and who says this song is just for white-trash weddings???) and all the aforementioned cute little old couples plopped these giant chicken hats on and went out to join the dance. Seriously - they were giant stuffed chickens, that just looked like they'd landed on their heads. And it showed some PREPARATION for said Chicken Dance. It was AWE-SOME !!!

So that was our awesome Friday night. On Saturday Rana was on call, so just slept in and then drove out to the cute little town of Farmington Hills, which is where I spent 5 months during my 3rd year of med school. They have this adorable little farmers market in a pavilion on the town square there every Saturday, and it was my favorite thing to do there. Thankfully it was exactly the same. It feels very big-city and small-town at the same time for whatever that's worth (I have this idea that only people in Greenwich Village have farmer's markets, for some unexplainable reason). The same flower vendors were there, selling ridiculously giant-sized bouquets of flowers for $5, and the Farmington Hills Bakery ("We Knead To Please") was there, selling their yummy turnovers and parmesan bread. I got my coffee (they didn't have the hot apple cider like they used to) and wandered around for a while with my flowers, listening to a guy playing the guitar, who was actually very good. Kind of like a small town Eddie Vedder playing a farmer's market.

So after I got as much as I could physically carry, I loaded up my goodies into the car and drove around Farmington Hills for a bit. It was so nice to be back there. I would be so happy to be there for the next 3 years. As long as it's within an easy drive of the farmer's market. I should have that in my contract somewhere.