This weekend I got to hang out with friends I met during my undergraduate years at Wake Forest. It barely feels like I know my friend Karen from Wake Forest, but it’s true. We lived on the same hall our Freshmen year and became great friends. She wound up transferring after that year, but we always stayed in touch and weirdly now live only about a mile away from each other in Baltimore. That’s less weird for her since she grew up in Maryland, but I can definitely say that when we met I never would have guessed we would both be living so close to each other in Baltimore. Despite the fact that we live so close, life and the significant travel she does for her job often mean that we still don’t see each other as often as one might think.

We finally found a time to hang out this past Friday night though. She, her husband, my husband, our friend Alison, and I all went down to the outdoor movie in Little Italy. My husband and I have been trying to make it to a Little Italy movie all summer, but it apparently a rule that it must rain every single Friday night in Baltimore this summer. This weekend was no exception. We braved the ominous looking clouds and went anyway. As per usual we ordered take out from Amicci’s. It started to rain just as we walked out the door with our food, but we persevered. We went and picked up our dessert from Vaccarro’s while it was raining, and by the time we got out it had stopped. We then got to enjoy our food and half of The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was the movie that was showing before it started raining again. At that point we decided to leave. It would have been better if the rain had just stayed completely away, but getting in the dinner, dessert, and hanging out time was the most important and we accomplished that.

Last night I also got to hang out with another one of the friends I made while at Wake Forest. My friend Emma moved to Maryland last fall, and we finally just got around to getting together with each other. That is a little more excusable since she still lives about an hour to an hour and half away depending on traffic. Emma and I had mutual friends in common and so met sometime during our first couple years at Wake, but didn’t really become friends ourselves until our Senior year when we wound up sharing a living space. The dorm we lived in had 4 single rooms and 2 bathrooms with a common living area and kitchen. We became great friends that year and often joked about being the same person.

After graduation we both headed off to graduate school, me in Maryland and her in Indiana so we’ve only seen each other a couple of times in the past decade. Yesterday we met up in Laurel, Maryland which is about halfway between where we each live. I had purchased a Living Social coupon for mini-golf at a place in Laurel so I thought it would be a good excuse for us to get together. My husband and I met up with Emma and her girlfriend Laura, who I was finally getting to meet after many years. We played some mini-golf and then had dinner a sushi restaurant. They weren’t very busy so we didn’t have to feel guilty about sitting at the table and chatting for three hours. It was great to see her and now that she’s living closer hopefully we’ll be able to see each other more often.

I made some great friends during college and I’m always happy when I get the opportunity to hang out with them.