Trip to the US, round I

After a good 15 months away, I finally returned to the "land of the free"! Flew into Miami, whooshed from one airport to the other and just before midnight I landed in Philly airport... Such sweet memories! Plus it was a cold night, just right for my welcome back moment! Cabbed it to Stef's and had an improvised yet tasty margarita to celebrate our reunion. The first 24h were stunning: it snowed (weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!), I visited the Philadelphia Red Cross (beautiful, organized, massive, inspiring - see first small photo on the right), hung out at New Deck for a couple hours to catch a bunch of my Freshmen crew who are now Seniors (felt like a proud Mom - see second picture on the right: Nikki, Ko, Steph, Priscelli, me and Lisa... Deep had come and gone already by the time I took my digicam out), met up with my hot socialite cousin Yaz, and had a scrumptuous dinner with Stef. I have to say it was incredibly enjoyable and comfortable to be back on campus, basking in that raw energy Penn always radiated... Day two I took the train to Washington DC where I metroed it to Bethesda and was picked up by my mom and Sue... reminded me of Thanksgivings (minus the mom part)! Caught up with the Sadrs, had dinner at Corinne's (her baby is adorable and truly a little man - there is no other way to explain him!), lunch in Georgetown with Dana, went out with Kamran (it is now super mega confirmed that we always have a good time when we go out - especially when security and the law aren't involved, sheepish grin), chatted with Shahla, spent the weekend at the Bay... Delicious.
The other photos are 1) my mom enjoying the snow right outside our favourite place of loiterage in Bethesda, i.e. a ginormous Barnes'n'Noble bookstore; 2) my mom, Corinne, Little Man Lucas and Jesus after dinner; and 3) me, Stef and Yaz at a Marbar party (entertaining, a solid reminder of the kind of parties I never really attended while in College and why I harbour no regrets, haha). I know chronologically the pix should be in a different order, but who said I was going for a chronological visual depiction of this blog post? Hehe.