Cornell Trip

Pt 1: Traveling

So, I left Harvard around 10:40, got on the T by 10:45, and arrived at South Station just around 11:00. Found the bus platform by 11:10; 50 minutes left to kill. Around 11:40 the bus arrived and people started getting in line. The line didn’t actually start moving until 12, though, and we left at around 12:20.

For the most part, I typed and listened to music. I sat on the top deck, near the front, of the Megabus, so I had a really nice view of the front; it almost felt like I was in a normal car again.

We arrive in New York City around 4:00am—after five hours of traveling, given daylights saving. The driver gets in a really tight spot upon trying to exit the highway, and things get a little scary, but we make it past and begin the drive on local roads. Before 4:20, we’re unloaded at a stop on 9^th Avenue and 35^th Street, so I make the walk over to 8^th Avenue and 41^st Street. Not very eventful; just a little cold despite the fact that I was wearing two shirts, a jacket, and a scarf (and gloves), which usually kept me pretty toasty in Cambridge. Got to Port Authority, but they weren’t open yet, at least the south building wasn’t, so the guy told some people to go to the north building, and I followed along. There was a guy screaming incoherently outside the building, but I was able to slip past and found the Greyhound booth. Got my ticket, and went downstairs to the basement to wait for an hour.

Boarded the bus to Ithaca around 5:25. Left more or less around 5:35 as scheduled. First stop was in Pennsylvania for a quick rest, but I decided to try to sleep. Upon leaving, there was a woman asking for something (I couldn’t hear) and she said “Come on now, be nice,” but the driver yelled “You’re not getting on this bus,” and closed the door. We left for Birmingham, NY. I fell asleep at this point and didn’t realize when they’d arrived at Birmingham, because when I next woke it was almost 10am and the view around was very much rural and hilly and leafy. I panicked a little, not sure if it was exactly the right place, but then the driver said on the intercom, “Approaching Ithaca Station,” and I was able to answer Phoebe’s call. Five minutes later, I disembarked.

Pt 2: Arrival

Immediately went and bought my Shortline ticket for the ride back, then began on the mile-or-so-long trek to the Starbucks we had agreed to meet at. The bus had passed by that Starbucks on the way to the Station, so I had an idea of where to go.

Along the way, I snapped some shots of the buildings and the leaves. They all look old, as if they’re from another time period. It’s definitely reminiscent of suburban America of a decade or two in the past. And everywhere I looked, there were just trees. Very nice and leafy.

Before I had gotten to the Starbucks, she called me again. I could see the Starbucks just a like fifty feet away, and then she spotted me and ran over, leaving her other friends behind on the other side. I recognized all but one of them—Kathleen and Pradyoth (Bryant), Stephanie, and Danny (the new one who I’d just been on the phone with). The first thing they say to me when they cross over, and while Phoebe was getting money from the ATM, was “Your friend there is crazy, you know?” I grinned. Yep. I knew alright. Glad we already got that established.

They weren’t hard to be around at all. In fact, it was surprising how natural it was to interact with them. No real embarrassment or annoying shyness. It was just easy.

After some waiting and some running around, we found a bus and took it up to Cornell.

Pt 3: Cornell pt 1

I got a tour of part of the campus (Central Campus?), kindly narrated in a soft and altogether pleasant tone by Danny. We all laughed at the large plaza in the middle (Ho Plaza?). Got a tour of one of the buildings, with a nice view in the back of Cornell and the surroundings. Then we headed off to get food, apparently in one of the upperclassmen dorms (Alice Cook House).

Along the way, though, we passed by the super steep hill (that they had a name for, I don’t remember anymore). I have to say, the view from there was superb. And walking downhill wasn’t bad at all.

We arrived at Cook House after walking for not too long. The dining hall was really nice; it had flags from all over the world draped along the ceiling on wires crisscrossing along. The food was also pretty nice; there was an Asian dimsum section in addition to a standard breakfast foods section, a desert section, a salad bar, and an omelet grill. I had some vegetarian lo mein, a vegetarian spring roll, and some kimchi dumplings, then some eggs and potato bits, and as a drink I got a glass (an actual glass!) of Pepsi (they don’t have Coke products, which I found interesting).

The food wasn’t aligned in a linear fashion, rather you waited in the specific line for the things you wanted. It was a lot more buffet like and a lot more free than Annenberg, I guess; I wonder if the upperclassmen house dining halls are like this too (from what I saw in Quincy, it seems likely).

After brunch, we continued along with my tour of Cornell. This involved going back up the slope, which Danny ran up. When the girls asked, Pradyoth also started running up (and then they noticed the peculiar way in which he runs). In the middle of it, Phoebe just stopped and sat down, unwilling to move any further. It took Danny running back down and carrying her on his back, very very painfully. The climb itself was difficult; imagine carrying another 100+ pounds after having run up it. Dear god.

Anyway, the first thing they showed me after that was Uris Library, which was nice; it had a large and open reading room (bright too; reminded me of a public library) but it didn’t look as comfy as the reading rooms in Lamont. The stacks were arranged interestingly. The first floor was pretty standard, but above it were these metal overhangs that were bridges to the other selections. To me, it seemed a fairly narrow and precarious situation, but I guess it works. It looked pretty nice, though, but I felt like a difficult place to work in.

I have to admit, the buildings in Cornell are exactly like how I imagined an Ivy League university would be like. It was all surrounded by green, most of them very old looking, and arranged in a way such that the great architecture was immediately apparent. It was, in short, very quaint. At the same time, though, I found it a little too removed from society for my tastes, although admittedly that was one of the reasons it felt so much like an Ivy.

After the library, we explored an area that had musical bricks, and then I heard the bells ringing at noon. It was spectacular. They were playing a song, an actual song; it wasn’t the dreary clang of the Mem Church bells back at Harvard, but rather a fifteen-minute long adventure of song. At one point while we were exploring a section of Cornell (that looked very reminiscent of Harvard Yard; it even had a statue of a sitting man) the bells started playing ‘A Whole New World’ and the bunch of us just sang along.

The next and final encounter was with a little gorge. This part of the campus (we were at the bridge leading to North Campus now) looked very much like a camping lodge, a nature retreat, rather than a university. It was an interesting place, and filled with the feeling of adventure that permeates nature. I saw a waterfall and a lake...and I got some nice pictures in.

Pt 4: Cornell pt 2

Eventually we made it back to the all-women’s dorm that Phoebe lives in. She tried hard to make the tiles (checkerboard black and white) and stair railings (leaves) seem interesting.. They weren’t particularly. Although the common room (a lounge, she called it) looked very comfy as it was filled with at least half a dozen sofas.

On the way over to her room, we passed by Anushka’s room and we met in person for the first time. Her parents were around, though, so she only said a quiet “So this was the surprise?” to Phoebe. It was great, though, meeting her in person. She is definitely one of the most adorable people I’ve met!

We finally made it over to Phoebe’s room (after making a trek down to Kathleen’s, only to find that she wasn’t there. We also took this as an opportunity to try the elevator, which was one of those old ones with the gate. It was a little scary, especially when it stopped.) and found everyone minus Danny. Kathleen and Pradyoth were in their usual space (where I always see them when Phoebe FB Video Chats me) and Stephanie was at her desk.

First order of business was…washing the utensils from the night before. I got to see the kitchen, which had a fridge with all sorts of nice sentences constructed with word magnates. Some other things I found while exploring the dorm was the pumpkins placed outside the doors (I took a picture of Phoebes, but didn’t get a chance to snap one of Kathleen’s, which was so cute).

Most of my visit, then, was spent inside room 4314 (“Four-pi”) doing work. Phoebe fell asleep soon after getting in, and took several 20 minute naps one after the other. The other two got down to business (at least at first) and were getting shit done. Stephanie discovered she had a Spanish essay to write and bolted out to somewhere else where she apparently got shit done as well. I finished typing up parts of my novel (got to 10000 words!) and then did my Chinese stuff. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I ate a cinnamon roll, drank some of the Coke in the fridge, and discovered that Kathleen and I share a similar love of Indie music (Bon Iver, Postal Service, Regina Spektor, etc. <3). It was great.

Once Phoebe finally woke up, we took a picture via webcam. Then we FB Vid Chatted with Emily! <3 I missed her a lot, and it was so nice seeing her, even if it was just on a laptop screen. So glad that there’s just another month and a half before I get to go home to my wonderful friends.

Anushka came back around this time (4:30-ish; we’d literally spent over 3 hours working) and Stephanie also returned. Since I was leaving in another hour or so, we decided now would be an appropriate time for dinner. So we walked over to Appel Commons and got foodz.

Once again, the dining area wasn’t a) filled with rows of tables arranged robotically; a lot more creative, although there were fewer spaces; the furniture was nice. And b) the food was arranged in a nonlinear fashion. There was another Asian bar (apparently there’s Asian food “all day erryday”, as Kathleen put it) then there was a main entrée bar, a Kosher bar, a pasta bar, a burger and fries bar, and more dessert goodness. Another plus was that they had apple cider, and lots of it. I drank a little more than a glass of it, and then took two glasses back in my SWDI waterbottle. Can’t deny that the food was really, really superb. Especially the pizza; I took one bite of that and for some reason it just tasted amazing. I can’t remember when I had ever eaten pizza that good before in my life. Then, for dessert, Stephanie brought me a bowl of ice cream, but I found it too much, so I went to get some on my own; a scoop of French vanilla, a teaspoon of the purple ice cream that Stephanie had brought me, and a half-scoop of chocolate. It was so good, and so fresh tasting. Oh god, I’m sure I’ll regret eating so much, but it was so, so worth it.

At the table, maybe halfway into eating, I finally remembered to tell Anushka “Happy Birthday.” In the excitement of it all, I had quite forgotten to verbalize it. I’m glad I remembered before it was too late.

Part 5: Cornell pt 3: Overview

I have to say, I really enjoyed my trip to Cornell, 10 hours on the bus notwithstanding. It’s a nice and quiet place, with a beautiful environment both in the nature that surrounds it and in the architecture. Some of the more creative quirks of the campus that I got to enjoy—especially the bells—were very nice. Still, as I said, the lack of any nearby city life would have made Cornell a difficult option for me.

The most rewarding part of the trip, though, was doubtlessly the chance I got to meet all those wonderful people. I’d only met them online once or twice before, but meeting them in person was much less awkward than that had me expecting. They were all great, relaxed and able to joke with and about each other, and that’s a quality I love in people. I also got to learn about some of their quirks, like Kathleen’s faces, Stephanie’s “moments,” Anushka’s swoon…we all joked about our faux racism, what with Kathleen’s love of the color yellow, and my status as a Harvard student was particularly joked about. When I did good problem solving, there was a “Yay Harvard” elicited mostly from Stephanie, and when I made a particular fail I got a “Harvard Durr” from everyone (like when I tripped in the last 10 minutes of my time there).

All in all, I’m glad I was able to meet new people. They were all great, and I’m happy that the number of Cornell buddies I have increased from one to five.

Part 6: The Return

I left Cornell around 6:05, and we left Ithaca probably just a little past 6:30. I slept for most of it. Got to Syracuse around 8:30, switched drivers. Pulled over en route to NYC, apparently the rear axle of the bus had problems. Stopped at Chester (I heard Cheshire and got excited) and switched buses. Cold at first, but gradually warmed up. Arrived in New York around 12:10am.

Rather than arriving at an obscure street corner as I expected, the Shortline actually pulled into Port Authority, which, given the night before, was a familiar location. So I decided to walk over to the Megabus stop since it wasn’t that far away. Found it around 12:20 and decided I didn’t want to wait in the cold for an hour before the bus would even arrive, so I walked around 9^th Ave and 33^rd-35^th St, bought myself a baguette and a 1L bottle of water, ate the baguette in Penn Station and waited there until 1:10, then made the walk over. Began boarding at around 1:20. Bus was overbooked; there were more people there than there were seats, but apparently some people just didn’t have tickets for that particular bus so things got settled. Luckily I got on the bus before it was full. Sat next to a girl from Scottsdale, and then basically slept for the majority of the trip. Woke up just before arrival, felt cold, hurried over to the subway terminal of South Station, and then took the T back to Harvard.

Went and got some Starbucks (tall caramel Americano), went back to Weld, took a few sips of the coffee, woke up at 8:10, fell back asleep until Jeremy woke me up at 9:15, and hurried through my daily routine, making it to breakfast at 9:40 and class by 10.

Life is good.