Eleanor & Yang
Our Story
How we met
Fall 2019: we were both at Penn for medical school and each joined Coffee Meets Bagel. Both of us chose images of Iceland for our profile pictures; we bonded over our love for the remote landscapes and beautiful waterfalls. We had our first date at a nice bar in the Rittenhouse Hotel and were talking so much that it took our waiter three attempts before we could order! We immediately connected and quickly planned our second date.
Quarantine
We were still newly dating when the pandemic started and Philly went into lockdown. We spent a lot of time together walking around Rittenhouse Square, eating takeout sushi, and watching all the cultural movements of the lockdown (made it through all of Tiger King together).
Long Distance
Four months into dating, Yang matched at his top choice for emergency medicine residency in Los Angeles. We decided we would give long distance a shot - we both became very good at long phone calls while commuting home and very familiar with the LAX airport. Two years later, Eleanor ended up in San Francisco for a general surgery intern year. We got really good at alternating flying up and down the California coast and were able to explore the state, taking road trips to Big Sur, Monterey, and Napa. When Eleanor went through the match for Otolaryngology, Yang promised to move anywhere so she could pursue her dream. She ended up in Indiana, where Yang has also been able to find his first attending job.
How he asked
On our first date, we had talked about going to Iceland together someday. Yang kept this in the back of his mind and planned a proposal at his favorite waterfall in Iceland, Skógafoss. We arrived at the waterfall at 6 am for "sunrise" (luckily Eleanor always gets up early on vacation), where Yang got down on one knee. He even arranged for a local photographer (shoutout to Ernir Eyjólfsson) to meet us and capture the moment with engagement photos! We then roadtripped around Iceland in our newly engaged bliss.