What's U.P with the University of Pennsylvania?

Today was an amazing day overall but the day didn't start out like how it ended. It was because last night I had the hardest time going to bed after I posted my blog.  The bed was pretty comfortable but the pillows were so hard and there was a large amount light coming into our room because we couldn't close the blinds. I was able to go to sleep but I was unable to get up when the alarm went off.
We planned to wake up at 7:30 a.m. to be able to eat to get breakfast with having some time left over to be able to make sure we had not forgot anything and we had time to load our luggage on the airport shuttle. In actuality I woke up at 8:13 a.m. which was sort of late because the front desk sent a wake up call at 8:00 a.m. yet, I was able to finish getting ready by 8:45 a.m. This gave me a reasonable amount of time to eat breakfast because the airport shuttle wasn't coming until 9:00 a.m.

 For breakfast I had two pancakes, a sausage patty, a cup of orange juice, and a bite of a delicious cinnamon roll. I was sort of disappointed because I didn't have a chance to finish my cinnamon roll but the food I was able to finish was pretty good.

The shuttle came on time, yet the thing that came at the wrong time was the storm! Right after we got on to the shuttle the rain started.It was light for about 2 or 3 minutes then it started to shower. And shower hard! So, we knew that our flight might be delayed depending on how long and how bad the storm was. It turns out that the storm was so bad and lasted so long that we ended up having change our flight to a direct flight,from Atlanta straight to Philadelphia. Which was really cool although we had to sit in the airport for 5 hours.

Watching and Waiting

 Now, I bet your wondering what we did in an airport for 5 hours? I'll be glad to tell you that we did what anybody would do in a large airport terminal. First, we all kind of sat around on our phones talking to one another. Chiamaka, Jun, and I  decided to go "exploring" for a great place to eat. We walked from end to end and only found two restaurants that actually sparked our interest. One, was the Sweet Georgia Juke Joint which happened to be serving the famous chicken and waffles! The second was Five Guys Burgers and Fries. When we walked back over to the group to report what we had saw nobody cared what we ate. We had one hard decision to make but what made it way easier was that a very reliable source (Chiamaka) informed us that Five Guys has large burgers and that it was like the huge version of In-n-Out. At that moment everybody was sold on the burgers.
 The cohort did not have food for a couple of hours and were stranded at the airport. So

We ate lunch at about 12:00, which was perfect because the meal was able to bring us through the remaining 3 hours we had to wait in the airport and also the 1 hour and 30 minute flight. The food was delicious I think it was been the best burger I have had in my entire life!

I finished the whole burger.

We headed to our gate after eating and watched the workers throw our luggage onto the conveyor belt. We were all very slighted by how rough they handled our belongings. Shortly, after we boarded the plane I looked for a seat and found it in the back.

The man who I had to sit next to immediately fell asleep, which caused me not to be able to talk to him the entire flight. The flight actually went by really fast to me, I'm assuming that is because of how long our other flights had been. When we landed in Philadelphia I was really excited because it is where I'm going to school!

We had to wait around for the shuttle for a little while because the airport was so full due to the holiday. The wait wasn't that bad because we all just talked like we did in the other airport. When the shuttle arrived we grabbed our bags and made our way to it. After, we loaded up we found out that we would be doing ride sharing which meant that some other people would be in the shuttle with us. Which I thought was really cool because it was an opportunity to socialized but it turns out the couple didn't speak English.

When we got to the Sheraton we unloaded our luggage and brought it to our rooms. John gave us 15 minutes to be ready for some sight seeing. Justeen, Joanne, and I were ready on time and we even had time to give Jun, Rudy, John, and Chiamaka a small tour of our hotel room. After, everyone looked at our room we went over to Johns' suite. To be totally honest I got a little jealous but our view makes up for the lack of space. We also, went up and saw the pool which was on the roof and the fitness center.

Next, we went out into the streets of university city to do some major exploring. The first place we went was the Wawa. Imagine seven eleven having secret a love child with subway! That is the only way I know how to describe it so far. I still have yet to try one of their hoagies but the time shall come.

"The path of knowledge"

Then, we went over to the Penn bookstore which happened to be two floors, it was huge. We also went walking on the campus. John showed us where our dorms will be but we couldn't see the inside just yet.

The Quadrangle

I'll have to wait until Sunday a.k.a move in day. We saw many beautiful places more than I can even describe in one blog. In the end the campus was so beautiful and the funny thing is, is that I'm really anxious to see the rest of it because of
how nice the part I did see was.

After, we our sight seeing we went out to eat at an amazing restaurant. Distrito, is a modern Mexican food hot spot. It was created by iron chef Jose Garces in order to share the Mexico city style cantina cooking with Philly. I ordered the carne kobe which was basically a flat iron steak with onions cheese and cilantro.

It was amazing but, I didn't have room to finish it due to the amazing entrees they had. We shared a vegetarian nacho platter

 ,a pork nacho platter, and chips and guacamole.

Another cool thing was that I got to try my first virgin margarita.

The icing on the cake of my night was the dessert! I ordered a tantalizing marshmallow,delicate chocolate slice, espresso ice cream creation. Ironically, I couldn't finish my tacos but I finished that.

The best part of my day!!!!

I had an amazing day with my cohort and I know there are many more to come!!!!