I flew into San Francisco this morning to start the first leg of my interview trip.  I got in kind of early, so after picking up my rental car (this fine looking PT Cruiser)…

…I decided to drive out to the 3 programs I’ll be interviewing at this week so that I have an idea where I’m going and hopefully won’t get lost.  UCSF was first, and it’s located at the top of a hill right by Golden Gate park.  The Children’s Hospital is actually a few floors located inside the general hospital – we’ll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Next I headed out toward Oakland where the other two programs are located.  I stopped by Oakland Children’s, which is a stand-alone, community based hospital (meaning, not a big academic center, no general hospital affiliated with it).  Then on to Kaiser Permanente – Oakland, which is a smaller campus of buildings.  I have those two interviews on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

And now I’m sitting in my hotel room at the Fairfield Inn Oakland, which is pretty darn nice for a Fairfield… at an airport location… I have 2 beds, and a little sitting area (it’s really cute, see)

… and I also have this little kitchenette with a microwave, a little fridge, a sink, and counters/cabinets.  That’s totally more than I expected and very cool.

Anyway, so now I’m thinking about heading out to find a grocery store so I can get some things to put in my kitchenette.  Probably some milk and cereal, some fruit, some soda or tea or something and maybe some snack-y something or other.  Then I will resume preparing for my interviews – practicing answers and reviewing the questions I want to ask and making sure I have everything ready for the morning.  I’ll update again sometime this week and talk about how everything is going.

Until then….