I had a great time in Philadelphia. The training course was o.k.; we had to be in for 8 but we wouldn't get started until 10. The morning consisted of having breakfast and then playing limit hold'em for play money and discussing every hand afterwards, thankfully I managed to avoid as much of it as possible, lol limit.

After that we'd correct the homework we were given the night before and then either have a class or play more poker. The homework was hit or miss, some nights it could be done in 15 minutes, other nights it would take several hours to get through. Then we'd have lunch and usually another class in the afternoon. Some days we'd also get a talk from one of the various departments and after that we'd play more poker until we could go home at 4. Bill Chen gave a poker talk for a couple hours which was really cool.

The company put on various things for us over the two weeks; there was a dinner in Chifa on Society Hill, it was a nice place but I wasn't a huge fan of the food. We went bowling as well, I suck at bowling but when I learned how to spin the ball it became a lot of fun, took some nice shots where the ball rolled right along the edge of the gutter and swung in just at the end. We also went to the Phillies vs. Atlanta Braves baseball game, had great seats but the game got rained out in the 8th inning.

The rain was really heavy, I could actually see the rain falling before it had gotten to us, I was out of my seat and into the aisle by the time it finally hit. In Ireland there's a lot of rain but it's mostly drizzle or light showers, in Philadelphia it was massive downpours or nothing at all. I also got a cheese steak from Tony Lukes which was excellent.

I went to see the Liberty Bell and the Rocky steps and I went out to the King of Prussia mall, it was pretty big although I'd kind of expected it to be bigger. Still managed to blow through a grand in 4 hours.

I lost about 5 pounds while I was over there, I've put on a lot of weight since I started this job, the long hours don't leave much time for exercising but I had a decent amount of free time to go to the hotel gym after class. On the plane back one of the other assistant traders showed me how to solve the rubiks cube, he can do it in under a minute, my best record so far is 2:03 which I'm pretty pleased about.

I also had my graduation on Wednesday, the ceremony dragged on a bit but it was nice seeing my friends again. I had gotten the parchment framed but it smashed in the suitcase on the way home.