dixi

After a good night's sleep, Andrew and I made our ways down to the hotel lobby to start our trip to New Haven, Connecticut. There, we were able to tour Yale and watch their creative information session video. It was a rainy day, and thankfully Don had advised us to bring umbrellas.

Yale's campus was beautiful. It was built like a large castle and our tour guide said that it was often compared to Hogwarts. We walked around the lovely campus and learned the history of Yale, myths, and funny stories. The tour was very influential, we were able to see what Yale was like and to determine if we would like to live there. Unfortunately, we didn't get a the best glimpse of campus life and liveliness because most students weren't on campus.

Afterward, we were fortunate enough to have lunch with Yohanna Pepa--former ILC member, PVHS graduate, and student of Yale University. We enjoyed a meal at the Union League Cafe. It was an enjoyable meal and everyone loved the food.

My steak sandwich

Yohanna talked to us about her application experience, her life at Yale, and reminisced with us about Pinole Valley High. It was a breath of fresh air to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar territory. Sadly, she leaves tomorrow for Italy. We wish her luck on her studies there!

Very shortly after separating from Yohanna, we made our way to Wesleyan for another tour. The Wesleyan campus was nice and green and more homey than Yale's campus. We had an information session, where we learned about their binding early action application. That was definitely a down-side of early action, but the school is definitely worth applying to.

We took the tour and discovered that Wesleyan has an extremely impressive center of recreation and sports. They had an Olympic size pool, an indoor track, indoor tennis courts, and indoor basketball courts. Outside, they had a baseball field and football field on their large field. They also sported a huge fitness facility a little bit off the main campus.

Wesleyan seemed to have a very close-knit faculty and staff. Our tour guide told us that when the students feel like eating outside, the staff accommodates and brings the food outdoors. We also learned that Wesleyan has an open curriculum, similar to Brown. They also don't have minors, so many students have multiple majors.

After our tour, we returned to the hotel and relaxed. Our group went out for dinner together at Cuban Revolution Restaurant & Bar. I ordered the JFK (another steak sandwich). We all enjoyed each other's company and spent a couple hours indulging ourselves in our meals.

Once we were back in the hotel, the group digested our food over an hour and then decided to exercise again. Kathleen, Erinn, Andrew, Erin, and I spent over an hour working off the calories we had accumulated.

Now, I'm here finishing my blog about the day and looking forward to the next.