This year’s AAO annual meeting took place in the city of Orlando, and as senior residents, we had our first chance to partake in this magical experience. Of course, having already spent a fortune on fellowship interviews, I was reduced to sharing a room at the local Econolodge, which luckily was within walking distance to the convention center. Due to lack of call coverage back home, I was only able to attend the Retina subspecialty day – a 2-day extravaganza of mini-lectures summarizing the biggest stories of the year in a single over-sized conference hall. In between the talks, I snuck in an interview for the ARC fellowship and visited the exhibitor booths to browse the new toys and grab some freebies. Although most of the reps were only giving out candy or eye drop samples, I did get my lenses engraved by the folks at Volk. More importantly, the meeting gave me a chance to reconnect with colleagues – past residents and fellows who have graduated, as well as faculty and other applicants from the interview trail. After our first day at the meeting, we enjoyed some tapas and Flamingo dancing at Cafe Tu Tu Tango, then set out on a wild night crashing a Genentech social in the Peabody ballroom, followed by a Cornea Society party with physician-DJ’s spinning house music at the Hard Rock Cafe. Hoping to take it easy the next day, we met up with some BU residents and stuffed ourselves with Turkish lavas and hummus at Anatolia before the ride home on a taxi-van from a driver named Mr. Muzik (spelling confirmed on cab badge). Despite the short trip, the traditionally busy call through the rest of AAO turned out surprisingly quiet, perhaps due to our first snowfall this Halloween, giving me a nice break before my next wave of fellowship interviews.