The Interview Trail.

Steve went to about a dozen interviews during residency interview season! We were obviously thrilled he got a good number of interviews at places he was interested in, but, while these usually boasted free dinner the night before, nothing short of a Tom Colicchio meal would really have made the extra separation worthwhile for us.

There were lots of day-long drives or flights followed by boring hotel evenings for Steve, and lots of carless single-parenting days for me, but mostly we just missed each other and the comfort of being together. While we were apart we played lots of games of Scramble and talked about things like how we couldn't think of anything to watch on TV without the other there, and what on earth happened with Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend. Steve posted facebook statuses like:

November 27

If I have to be away from home for interviews, it helps to be driving a Fiat 500 (two days for 34 bucks? What?) to the beach before a dinner with awesome residents at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Orlando. Nice work, Orlando.

December 5
Catching up on the Walking Dead in a hotel room alone in a small town before an interview = FAIL

December 14
Good first impression, Charleston. Strong work. Also, a 930 start time is never a bad thing.

(He also ran into Liv & Sarah in Charleston and ate this ginormous pizza.) 

January 17
Just switched to news in Nashville. They are reporting on which country singer contestants made the cut in American Idol. Hmmm...

and
Weird how one can get tired of free dinners...

In the middle of December, he had one close enough to warrant taking the kiddos along, so we made a little road trip out of a trip to the Palmetto program in Columbia. (Steve's facebook status on Dec 10: Screw the lonely interview trail. Bringing the fam to South Carolina...)

So we packed up and began the trek, starting with a trip to Ikea. Just kidding? We already went to Ikea like 3 times already in 2012, right? Yeah, actually that didn't deter us. :) But it was just a short trip to pick up some nifty gifties for the kids for Christmas, and you know, have some non-Swedish lunch.

Chocolate milks and lingonberry juice. We know where its at.

For the kids, the trip was all about the hotel. We pulled out the hide-a-bed and let them crawl around watching tons of Christmas movies on ABC Family. I don't actually remember what we scavenged for dinner, but I spent a really nice, mellow night with the kids while Steve was off enjoying his free dinner. :)

During his interview the next morning the kids and I just hung around some more. It wasn't eventful, but it was fun to be near Steven instead of hours apart waiting for him to drive home.

After he finished we all drove home. He did several more, some by car and some by plane, and finally finished up with an interview in Florida last week. We're so glad he's done. So was Facebook, where he got 22 likes just for posting:

January 25
Last interview today. Wooohooooooooooo!

...and a few more than that for relating his morning's events:

So, last interview day. Wake up, get dressed, pick up tie... Not there. Internal debate - half hour left - go without tie, or find one?

Find local Walmart, buy cheap black and white tie, show up a few minutes late.

First words out of program director's mouth for my interview: "I like your tie."

Win?

When he brought it home, I had to agree: it actually was a pretty nice tie.