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!!!!

Oh My 'Lanta!

Emory University and Atlanta had a lot to offer from BBQ to convenience. It was too bad that we couldn't stay in the city for another day because we could have went out and explore the city. I am considering about applying to Emory University but it's probably not going to be my first choice. 

I started my day by going down to lobby and eating breakfast. Mr. Hillyer told us that there would be a storm today and that we should be prepared in case anything would happen. We had to finish packing our stuff and eating breakfast by 8:55 A.M. and get on the shuttle to the airport at 9:00 A.M. Halfway through the drive, it started raining heavily and we heard thunder. Seeing this, we knew that our flight was going to be delayed and after arriving at the airport and checking in, the Southwest Porter told us that our flight was delayed. We were all very disappointed and didn't know what would happen next. Chiamaka and I had TSA Pre-Check so we were able to get through security quickly. We waited ten minutes for the others to come and then went to the plane train to get to our terminal. Since our flight was delayed, we were able to get a flight that would directly fly to Philadelphia instead of flying to Orlando and transferring to Philadelphia.

The consequence of this flight was that we had to stay at the airport for five hours. Some stayed behind and started on their blogs and others walked around the airport. At noon, we walked to Five Guys to eat lunch and I ordered a Bacon Cheeseburger. After arriving at our gate, we all sat by the window and enjoyed watching the workers aggressively throw people's luggage onto the plane. I did feel disrespected but at the same time it was my source of live entertainment for the day.

Our luggage. It really was our luggage.

We boarded the plane at 3:20 P.M. and the plane left the airport at 3:30 P.M. Chiamaka and I sat next to New Yorker named Kris. He gave us a lot of financial aid advice and told us really look for scholarships and state grants. Chiamaka and I informed him about the ILC and he was very impressed that our school offered this scholarship and thought it was good that we joined the program. We talked throughout the plane ride and before we knew it, we were in Philadelphia. Our luggage was out within 15 minutes after the flight landed. I have been looking forward to Philadelphia for the last two months and finally we were here. We waited almost an hour for our shuttle to take us to the hotel. We checked into the Sheraton Hotel by UPenn and walked around the campus after dropping our bags off. The campus is beautiful and I just fell in love with it. I can't believe that I will be taking classes here next week. Mr. Hillyer took us to the famous Wawa which is a mixture of  Starbucks, 7-11, and Subway sandwiches. Since Wawa is opened 24/7, I think I will be able to go there if I decide to take a break from studying.

We are moving in on Sunday!

 Gym

Mr. Hillyer took us to an Iron Chef restaurant called Distrito. We ordered some nachos and for the entree I ordered a Mahi Mahi. I didn't think that the taco was very special but when I took a bite out of it, it was amazing. All the ingredients worked very well together and there was the right amount of acidity. I thought that for the quality of the food, we paid a reasonable price. 

DESSERT! Coffee Cheesecake

Mahi Mahi Tacos

Tomorrow is 4th of July and I can't wait to celebrate the birth of the greatest country in the world, America, in her birth place. God Bless this country and may she continue to be great.

Airport Strangers, Churros, and WaWa

Today started out as a slow day. The rain seems to have followed us from Houston. The morning rain was terrible while we were on our way to the Atlanta airport. The cars in front of us splashed us with the water forming on the road. Mr. Hillyer was afraid that our flight would be pushed back and he was right. We were supposed to be on a flight to Orlando that connected to Philadelphia but that didn't work out. On the bright side, we were able to upgrade to a direct flight to Philadelphia, but it would not leave for another 5 hours.

We didn't do much at the airport besides watch funny videos, eat at Five Guys, and talk about AP tests. After the five hours, anyone could tell that we were tired. We witnessed one of the airport workers throw our bags onto the conveyor belts. It hurt just a bit watching my precious cargo be thrown onto the belt backwards. We laughed a bit afterwards. This is a warning to everyone out there to not pack any fragile items in their check in bags. 

On the flight, Joanne and I had the pleasure of talking with a New Yorker named Kris. We exchanged our thoughts on racism, differences in our generations, and college opportunities all in a two hour span. He was a very nice guy who had a lot of interesting life stories to share with us. Sitting with a stranger seemed a bit scary at first but our conversation with Kris made the flight go by faster. 

Right after we got off our plane, while others used the restrooms, I stopped over by a corner store for Philadelphia souvenirs and got a baseball hats. I'm really into baseball hats lately because they're stylish, though  I don't really like baseball. I got a Philadelphia hat and decided that on our way back to California, I would stop by for a T-shirt. I already know I'm going to love this city so I might as well represent.

After the flight, we rushed over to the hotel, put our bags down, and explored the city. I am completely in love with UPenn. I visited it for a day last year and I loved the city as well as the campus and I loved it even more this time. The vibe was everything I'm looking for in a city. Everything was calm, the weather was nice, and the people were courteous. I loved the fact that the campus was open and part of the city. The architecture is completely my kind of college aesthetic. I would not mind at all if I got accepted here for college. Mr. Hillyer says that the UPenn has one of the best Pre-Med tracks in the country which is really exciting to me. 

We saw a different parts of the city such as the oh-so-famous WaWa. For those who do not know what WaWa is, it's as if Subway, 7-11, and everything else good in the world got together and created the ultimate convenience store. 

We stopped at Distritos, a really good Mexican restaurant, for dinner. It took a

while to get my food and desert but I didn't mind so much because the food was worth it. I ordered Huarache De Costillas with short ribs which was really good. It kind of tasted like pizza but better. I had churros for desert but since it took so long, I decided to box it up so I wouldn't keep my cohort out too long. Our walk back to the hotel was really nice. We stopped by WaWa for some midnight snacks and gathered for a blogging party. Tomorrow is fourth of July and I've been looking forwards to this day the whole week. John knows most of what there is to know about Philly so I'm very excited for what the day has in store.

statues or UPenn cohort?...who knows

Things are good in U.C. Penn!

Woke up feeling dehydrated this morning I guess it was because of the sauna the night before, I hadn't packed everything yay because we were leaving at 9. It was 8:00 am and I packed my bags fast and headed downstairs for breakfast. I saw that Joanne and Jun and Chiamaka were already there so I joined them after I got a good amount of food. John came down and also joined us after Jun left to bring her things. Time flew and it was already 8:50 when we finished breakfast so I hurried upstairs and I took a while getting downstairs because I couldn't find an item I misplaced. We got a text fr john reminding us to be there as soon as possible as we were all leaving downstairs.the weather was nice and warm again made me kinda miss the Bay Area mornings since I like the cold foggy mornings. As soon as we got on the road to the airport it started pouring down rain! Wish we had rain like that in California, it would be very welcomed.

Pouring in Atlanta

When we got to the airport it was still raining so we all hurried to the entrance where it was sheltered from the rain. We all checked in our bags and we were told that our flight had been delayed about two hours. We freaked out but john helped us calm down since he told us that it would all be alright and that this wasn't as bad as we thought. He gave us hope and told us that we might get to take a straight flight to Philadelphia in best case scenario. We didn't want to get our hopes too high since he also told us that an ILC cohort had spent 25 hours stuck at an airport before. We took the airport train again to get to our gate after we passed thorough the screening it was much easier than before, thank goodness the lines were empty! Once we got to our gate john talked to the lady and he got us a flight straight to Philadelphia!!! Although we would have to wait for five hours for the flight to arrive we would only arrive one hour late to Philadelphia. It was great news!

The Airport Train is Far From Overkill

We had 5 hours to kill, great thing there were plugs where we could change our electronics. We started off my finding an empty gate where we could all sit down as a group. We were all in good mood and hanging out. Then John have out our stipend for two days and advised us on how we could spend it. Then he told us this great story about the eye surgery he went through since he used to wear glasses. It sounded really painful but he says he didn't feel a thing since his eyes were completely numb. We learned that your eyes grow lens by Layers and that we smooth it out by blinking. It was really cool! I then killed time by watching the boondocks on Netflix with Justeen and Joanne they found the show to be a bit weird since they hadn't watched it before. We also talked about how every main character in the show represented the personality groups found in the African American community at the time. I Found it very interesting then I took a 15 minute charging break while I worked on my blog. 

Lovely Lunch

Downtown Philly!

We ate lunch at five guys, it was my first time trying it and the burgers were great! I love mushrooms and the burgers had a good amount of them the fries were also good. We sat down on different sides, I got the corner so I didn't socialize much but absolutely enjoyed the food. We finished eating and continued the waiting. The five hours flew by! We were all using our electronics. Once the boarding time was near we went to our gate and saw the luggage being loaded. The luggage was being mistreated and we all were staring and talking about it. The waiting time on the line felt much longer than the full five hours we had waited. The flight to Philadelphia was the best flight yet! I drew and also talked to the two strangers I sat next to they were cool people and around my age. We finally made it to Philadelphia! 

After we arrived we quickly walked down to the luggage claim area after taking a bathroom break. We got our luggage really fast. Then John figured out the shuttle details and we waited for the shuttle for a while. Once we caught the shuttle to University City, U.C. Penn, it wasn't long till we could see downtown, the city was beautiful. Got to the hotel and checked in our bags, this is where we got our first taste of the Philadelphia personality, straight forward and scruffy, as described to us by our waiter at Distritos later that night. 

My View From My Room

Pie (math) Shaped Student Apartments.

Sweet Fraternity House!

We dropped off our luggage and went on a walk around the UPenn campus, it was amazing and all the buildings were beautiful. Like John said it felt a lot like home even the weather was a little bit similar this day. We saw the famous statue of Benjamin Franklin sitting reading a book and we also saw many fraternity houses that were amazing and absolutely gorgeous. Old style architecture was everywhere on campus and it is beautiful! We saw our dorms and it is awesome! It looks like a castle because it's made from rocks bricks and cement and it is humongous! 

Well Hello There Mr. Franklin

Our Dorms!!!!

We were all very hungry and w
alked down to Distritos where we had really good food and great customer service. We had virgin margaritas and they were really good! We had great appetizers and I ordered a steak that I shared with everyone that was delicious! We ended dinner with deserts and left around 9:30 pm. It felt really weird again but I was expecting the weather to be warm at night it was strange because nights are cold in Cali. We ended our nights with snacks and a blog party at johns room! It was an amazing day and we finally made it to our final destination, University City UPenn or as I like to jokingly call it, U.C. Penn!!!!

Awesome Chapel With Creepy Statues At The Sides

On Our Way Back

New Place New Knowledge

Atlanta was a nice city, at least from what I saw. Although there was a lot of rain, the people that I met gave off a really friendly atmosphere. I just wish that we could have explored the city more, but with our limited time, I can understand the rush. One thing I won’t miss, however, was the window at my room. The curtains were too sheer, so the light from outside kept everyone up. After we got into bed, it took almost an hour for Joanne, Elexis, and I to just fall asleep. When we finally got up, it was around 8:10 AM, so Elexis and I hurried to pack our things so we would still have enough time for breakfast, while Joanne went downstairs to eat first. The Holiday Inn had a variety of breakfast foods ranging from cereal to eggs and bacon. Personally, I didn’t really have an appetite to eat a lot, so I just went with some scrambled eggs and some pancakes. After finishing our food, we went back upstairs to get our luggage, and headed to the airport.

Waiting for our plane

Once we arrived, we discovered that our flight had been delayed due to the weather, which was no surprise, considering the fact that the rain started pouring when we were barely on the freeway. Instead of having the flight at 11 AM, it was pushed back to 12:45 PM. Thankfully, Mr. Hillyer was able to get us tickets to a direct flight to Philadelphia, instead of having us go to a stop-over in Orlando, Florida. The only bad news was that we weren’t even going to board until 3:30 pm. This left us with 5 hours of just waiting at the airport.

To me, this seemed longer than waiting for our original flight, but Mr. Hillyer said that we would’ve arrived in Philadelphia an hour earlier than the other flight. To my surprise, it was true. Our original flight was delayed yet again, and there would’ve been an hour of waiting at the airport in Florida. Nonetheless, our new flight schedule gave us nothing to do but to talk, eat, and blog.

First off, we began wandering around the airport to look for seats for the 7 of us. When we finally set down our luggage, Elexis, Jun, and Chiamaka got bored of just sitting around, so they walked around to look for restaurants that we could go to for lunch. In the meantime, Rudy, Joanne, Mr. Hillyer, and I stayed behind and watched everyone’s things. This gave us some time to talk a bit more and started drafting our blogs.

When they came back, we waited for about 30 minutes before we actually went out to eat. While waiting, interesting topics popped up in our conversations. At first we were simply talking about what we could do in Philadelphia, but then it changed into the topic of Lasik eye surgery. Mr. Hillyer went into detail about the procedure done on his eyes, and it was not pretty. I learned a lot from his detailed description, but I know one thing for sure; I am never going to get eye surgery. After that topic passed, we moved on to the discussion of drinking responsible, and then to abstinence. I honestly have no idea how we got to those topics, but they were interesting to talk about.

At around 12:30 PM, we went all the way across the airport to eat at Five Guys, a fast food restaurant that served delicious burgers. Since I was still a little bit full from breakfast, Jun and I decided to just share one burger, because their food was pretty big. The dining space for Five Guys was rather tight, so Mr. Hillyer, Jun, Chiamaka, and I sat in one table, while Rudy, Joanne, and Elexis sat in another. Once we picked up our orders, the first thing I saw were two tall cups full of fries. I was already full from just looking at it. Eating all of these large amounts of food for three days straight made me feel extremely unhealthy, but they were certainly delicious.

After eating, we just headed back to our gate and just relaxed a bit. There was still two more hours to kill, so we all just did our own things. There really wasn’t much to do at an airport, but after sitting for so long, we all became entertained by watching the workers aggressively throw our luggage onto a conveyer belt. This have the result of 5 hours with nothing to do. At least after they finished loading the luggage, we were able to finally board the plane at 3:30 PM. It was smooth sailing from there, and I had a quiet flight because we were all scattered, and my neighbors didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk.  I’m just glad that this is going to be the last flight I’m going to have to take for a while.

Philadelphia Skyline

It was a huge relief when we finally landed since the plane was full of small children that were whining the entire flight. This flight actually felt longer than our flight from San Francisco to Houston, even though it was only two hours long. Anyways, when we landed, we just went to claim our luggage and waited for the shuttle. It took a while to get to the airport, so it gave us time to take even more pictures. When we got into the shuttle, we shared it with an older couple and headed to the Sheraton hotel. On our drive, the gorgeous architecture of the buildings and the city life was fascinating to me. I never even knew how urban University of Pennsylvania was. When we entered University City, I didn’t even realize which part was the city and which was the actual university.

The view from our room

We checked into our rooms, and we ended up rooming with the same people as last night. We then went out at around 7 PM to tour the neighborhood and even part of the campus. The weather was actually perfect today because it wasn’t even like humid like the other days, and I was finally able to see what the famous Wawa’s was like. Imagine a 7-Eleven combined with Subway and Starbucks all in one. That’s basically how Wawa’s is like. We took tons of pictures, and we even took one with the well-known Benjamin Franklin statue. Mr. Hillyer also took us to see all of the fraternity houses, which were absolutely stunning. They looked like small castles and had intricate details on their walls. I fell in love with the Penn campus.

UPenn Bookstore

Frat Row

Nachos!

After our mini tour, we went to a restaurant called Distrito, and their food was like gourmet Mexican food. I found out that the restaurant was founded by an iron chef, which explains why the food was so delicious. They had a variety of food, ranging from tacos to enchiladas to steaks. Their menu was so extensive that I didn’t even know what to order, but I ended up getting their one of their tacos. I even got to try my first virgin margarita. Afterwards, we had our desserts and we were back to the hotel in no time. All of us went to Mr. Hillyer’s room, and we had a little “blog party” to finish up the rest of our blogs.

It was nice spending time with everybody, even if we’re just typing our blogs up. I’m definitely excited to see the rest of Philadelphia and celebrate the 4^th of July at the birthplace of this day. 

One of the dorms

The dorm I'll be staying at

Emory Memories!!!!

I had a great sleep last night, as I was tired from the flight from Oakland to Houston that lasted 7 hours. With that being said it wasn't hard for me to wake up this morning at 5 a.m. but, it wouldn't have been hard to stay asleep either. The beds and pillows in my room were so soft and comfy I wish I could have slept another hour but I knew I had to be downstairs at 5:35 a.m. with everybody to catch the airport shuttle.

Our flight was at 7:50 a.m., we had to leave early in order to beat the rush. Which we did unlike in Oakland. Yet, again I didn't have to wait in the security check line because I had TSA Pre-check. This time four of us had it, Rudy,Joanne,Justeen and I. It didn't really matter because both the regular security line and the TSA were exceedingly short.

Buffalo Wild Wings!!!!!!!!!

 After, everyone had gone through the security lines it was only about 6:10 a.m. and we were all hungry. We walked around for about 10 minutes trying to decide what and where we wanted to eat.  We decided on Buffalo Wild Wings. I ordered the buffalo breakfast platter which consisted of bacon,eggs,a biscuit, potato wedges, and salsa. It was really good and filling (or maybe I was just hungry).

Next, we headed to gate 23 and waited in line for about 15 minutes then we boarded the plane. Like, last time I sat with Jun and Chiamaka but this time I got the window seat. The flight was expected to take 2 hours. It just so happened to take exactly how long it was expected to. While, we were on the plane I started my blog and played a few games on my tablet. I would have talked to people but nearly the entire plane was sleeping besides my cohort. The flight felt as if it took less than 2 hours, I think that was just because of the madness of yesterday’s flight. I did not have a problem with the speed of the flight at all I was actually quite happy.

Catching the Plane Train

After, we landed in the airport we hopped on the plane train. The plane train is a subway like train that transports you through the airport in a matter of minutes. While, we were on the train I almost fell over! The reason was because I was looking down at a picture I had just taken, so I wasn’t paying attention when the train started.  Fortunately, Jun and John were there to grab my hand just in time.

Then, we headed out to the shuttle bus area where we loaded all of our luggage and went to our hotel. The Holiday Inn Express was the hotel we stayed in and it was very nice. Shortly after, we got there we went over over to Emory university.

Our first stop was the admissions office where we met Scott Allen. He did a short presentation that lasted about an hour in which we learned all about the admissions an a little about the university itself. One of the things we learned was that Emory was a branch of Oxford. Oxford was founded in 1836 and Emory was founded in 1915. It is based on liberal arts and classic world study. When the admissions office receive applications they look for the 4 P's. The first and second are preparation which both entail classroom readiness,teacher recommendations, grades,coping skills ( the way one bounces back from not getting the grade they wanted), and critical thinking. The third and fourth are personality and potential which consist of personal writing ( shows personality), following of directions, community service and skills, and raw thinking about yourself and how you think. That was just a little bit of what we covered in the presentation.

The tour began 5 minutes after the presentation ended. Our tour guide was named Maddie Clifton, she is currently a student at Emory. She told us many things about the university and showed us a lot of the major areas of the campus . 

Maybe not the best picture but I got her.

One of the places she took us was the dorm rooms of freshman.Those were very small and nice.

After, the tour was over we decided to take a shuttle to a barbecue restaurant. We took a shuttle to Community BBQ it was delicious. We order meat combos so we could all try something different. The main dish I tried was the hot link sandwich. I did enjoy it, the pulled pork, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, the potato salad, and baked beans. All I can say is that I have nothing bad to say about the food or the service quality.

My delicious Hot link sandwich

In closing, I had a very fun filled day and I am so happy I had the chance to go and visit such a dynamic school.

Goodbye Houston, Hello Atlanta!!!

On our way to the airport, middle lane

Woke up well rested and ready to go! 5:00 AM and my alarms go off, I had set them up to go off every 3 minutes to monitor my pace. I packed my things and checked everything 3 times then I made myself some tea and texted my loved ones to let them know I'm well. I walked downstairs 10 minutes before the shuttle arrived and John was the only one there. He called the others and they were on schedule. We walked outside and it was warm! The streets looked wet but the rain was gone. It felt really nice, 5 AM and it was warm and humid, the sun hadn't even come out yet! Everyone came downstairs and we were ready to go! The shuttle calls John soon after and we got on after they sorted out some technical difficulties with parking and where we could load the things and get on.

We got to the airport fairly fast since there was no traffic that early in the morning. On our way I noticed that there was a line on the freeway where it was in between both sides and there was undisturbed traffic running through it. It was really cool because it was separated from both sides of the freeway by a wall and it stretched pretty far.

Breakfast Buffalo Wild Wings 

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time, checked in our bags and got our tickets. Four of us got to skip the lengthy security line which was surprisingly short. I was glad I was one of them because I didn't have to take my shoes off or anything. We waited for less than 5 minutes for the others and we gathered together to discuss breakfast and flight time. We had a little less than an hour til our flight by the time we decided to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings. We ordered water meanwhile we decided what to eat. Since there was a lot of people coming in the waiter took a while to return and take our order. We were ready to order and so we did quickly for time's sake. We waited a while for our food and when it arrived we only had about 10 minutes before we had to leave. I finished fast, I was the second done, after John. Everyone was done soon after and we left. I noticed the bags under the table and since Jun had already exited the restaurant and her bag was there so I took it to her. 

We Landed On Schedule!

We got on the plane and everything was on schedule unlike the first day. The plane ride was sweet, I got to take a nap for most of the time and we even sang happy birthday to a young lady turning 10 and made a plane cake. We turned on the lights and shut off the windows and after singing happy birthday she blew the lights out, it was cute. We got to the right airport in Atlanta on schedule! It was awesome the airport was huge! There was even a tram inside to take you to the baggage claims and the gates. We walked to the baggage claims after exiting the tram and it took a while because Chiamaka's bag didn't show up till 20 minutes after. We thought we would have trouble getting to the hotel but we ended up finding a shuttle with an awesome driver who also brought us to Emory's campus after we got to the hotel and dropped off our things. The hotel had a really cozy lobby with a really cool couch.

Airport Art

We all took a bathroom and coffee break after putting our luggage away. We hurried into the shuttle and we were off to Emory University! Everything was on time and it was going great! On our way to Emory we couldn't but notice how beautiful the brick houses were. In California we didn't see that at all, unless it was fake brick. With the beautiful green plants in mid summer we were a bit jealous of Atlanta. We made it to the beautiful Emory campus and the first thing we noticed was how beautiful the buildings were with all the marble they had. We walked to where were supposed to check in for the tour and we didn't know we had to sign up online so john talked to them and we signed up right then and there. We were in luck because they still had space for all of us. Since we were early we went to the gift shop and bought some things. The 25% discount on one item we got from the tour guides and Joanne also let us use her Barnes & Nobles gift card which they accepted to get a discount on the other items came in handy.

Bipolar Weather

Elexis At the Gym Kicking it With the Statue

The tour started off with an awesome inside presentation from an admissions officer. He showed us a video about what life is like at Emory and it was an awesome video that featured regular students at Emory and what student life was like! Then we moved on to asking questions about admissions. After someone asked about deadlines for college applications he asked us who was exited to apply to colleges and I raised my hand fast, as soon as my hand was up everyone had their eyes on me and I lowered it back down because I got a bit embarrassed since I was like the only person who raised their hand. We learned a lot of things about Emory, it is a medium sized university with two campuses founded at different times. The second was founded by the owner of Coca Cola being the biggest sponsor and he's still the one who donated the most money to Emory. So as an aftermath the word Pepsi is a taboo on campus and most of this city. We leaned that the admissions officers looked for four major factors that a student must have to be accepted, preparation, potential, personality, and perspective. We can turn in up to six recommendations two of which must be from teachers. I asked about the early decision deadlines and he said November 1st-15th, I asked because I plan to apply for early decision to the college of my choice. They use the common app so that is very convenient for those who apply. Another good thing about it is that 92% of the freshman class make it to senior year at Emory. Finally I found the southern accent to sound really cool! It was awesome to listen to all the questions and answers and I learned a lot, makes me wonder how the Rice tour we missed because of the storm was like.

"Most beautiful architecture on campus"

Our Tour Guide Talking To Us About Food

We got split into three groups and we got a lady named Maddie who was a rising senior. She did a great job and kept answering every question I though about before I got to ask. We had a great and our cohort was ready for the showers that came at us! We all had an umbrella and I had a poncho. The campus was beautiful and the weather bipolar, it would. Rain then the sun would come out then repeat again, the only thing that stayed the same about the weather was the humid heat. We visited a freshman dorm and saw an actual room for freshman a to stay in, they were bigger than the ones at Berkeley and they even had a sink. The space was very organized and they maximized space by putting bunk beds and space for the person staying in the bunked under it. The cafeteria was amazing and the food was diverse and smelled great! We then passed by the sports building where they had a lot going on, from rock climbing to dancing, the sky was the limit! Finally we ended the tour walking to the building we began at and saw Dudley the King of mischief! He got to get students out of class after testing and he sounded like an awesome skeleton! 

Freshman Dorm Room

After everything was done we went to eat an amazing diner at Community BBQ!!! It was amazing as soon as we came in the mouthwatering smell from the BBQ screamed at us "you chose the right place!!!" We were all tired from the tour and were hungry and ready to eat! The staff was amazing and I even got a shirt from there. We had a lot of different food and it was all great!!! I tasted real mac and cheese for the first time and I loved it!!! Although the collard greens were fabulous it wasn't to my taste. We had a great dinner and we devoured the scrumptious food, it was to die for!

Best BBQ Ever!

Cooling Off

We got back to the hotel and John got our keys and we then got out our luggage from the room where we left it and went upstairs to our rooms. I again got a room to myself. I settle in my room and put music while I worked on the blog. Since I learned there was a pool I went first and there was even a sauna. I invited everyone to join me and they did soon after. Jun was the first to come and then she went upstairs to get a swimsuit.  We all had fun at the pool and stayed down for about two hours. We then got together to eat snacks and watch a movie at Joanne's, Elexis', and Justeen's room. I was exhausted and didn't finish the movie instead I went back to my room and went to sleep after calling my loved ones.

No Pepsi, No Problem

Today marked the second day of our ILC trip and luck was fairly on our side. We all met downstairs in a timely manner and boarded our shuttle over to the airport. We successfully landed at the Atlanta International Airport, which is one of the largest airports in the country. It was so big we had to take a train to baggage claim. 

Dooley

We were lucky enough to find a shuttle to take us over to our hotel for a quick luggage drop off then over to Emory University for our tour. Our tour started out a bit shaky due to spasmodic rain. Our tour guide did her best working around the rain and I feel as if we got as much out of the tour as if it hadn't rained. We saw the inside of the dorms which was bigger than what I'm used to. We also saw different libraries and halls scattered around the campus. All of these different sights helped me develop a good idea of what the University's character was like. 

Our tour guide spoke of different Emory traditions such as "Wonderful Wednesday" or "First Friday" in which different events happen on campus during those days. The event that sounded the most interesting to me would have to be "Dooley Week," which is similar to "Spirit Week" at some schools. During this week, Dooley, the unofficial school mascot, comes round to different classes to release students, plays pranks, and walks around with body guards. I loved the school spirit and the sense of community at the school.

Touring in the Rain

In all honesty, Emory was beautiful. The trees were tall, the buildings were comfortable, and the air was clean. I loved the fact that the class sizes are small, and that studying abroad is common. I really liked that there were so many clubs on campus and there's so many ways to get involved on campus. All of these aspects are really important to me when college searching. Even though I liked the school a lot, I just feel like I wouldn't fit in. The school just didn't click with me. I didn't get that spark in my head that told me that "This was the one." However, I would recommend the school to others.

Our lunch after the campus tour was to die for. We went to Community BBQ, and it was the best barbecue I've ever had. The meat was cooked perfectly and I am going to be dreaming about the ribs tonight. Throughout the day, I realized that Coca-cola is really big here. The Coca-cola company was created by John Pemberton who spent two semesters in Emory. I have not seen a single Pepsi anywhere. I am a Pepsi fan but I guess I can set my differences aside for this beautiful city.

Next we head to Pennsylvania and I am more than excited to see what the day will hold for us.