TOURISTS

In addition to visiting friends on Spring Break, we also had a chance to visit some great colleges on the East Coast.

Our first stop was Swarthmore where Nicholas and I took a tour. It was the smallest school we visited with approximately 2,000 kids - smaller than my high school - but a wonderful liberal arts college.

Next, we visited the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia, a much more urban campus. During our time walking around, the area was hit with a brief but powerful snow squall, but we made it out in one piece!

Our next stop was Princeton, which was another beautiful campus. This time, Cate and Kathleen joined us on a tour. We ran into a family from our same high school in Ann Arbor at lunch after the tour. Small world!

Next, we headed into New York City and hit up Columbia. Again, this was a very urban campus, but it feel a little more sedate than the neighborhood Penn was located in. We even saw the restaurant used in Seinfeld.

We had a great Vietnamese lunch and ice cream from Milk Bar. Then, we walked down to MOMA. It was a rapid fire visit, but fun nonetheless. After 13 miles of walking, we end our day in the city with a stop at a nice Japanese restaurant for some high quality sushi. Nicholas was enraptured. 

From there, we headed upstate to Syracuse, which has one of the nation's best sports broadcasting schools, the Newhouse School. They were not offering tours that day, but they let Nicholas sit in on an admitted students' session that day. He got to hear all about the Newhouse School and even have lunch on the field of their iconic sports stadium, the Carrier Dome.

We finished up with a visit to beautiful Ithaca nearby Syracuse. The daughter of one of my collaborators is a student there, and she met us after our very steep walk from downtown to the campus. No wonder apple maps said the 1 mile walk would take 40 minutes! There is no elevation gain on these programs, so we had no idea what we were about to do. Cornell was a beautiful campus, literally gorge-ous!

Fortunately, we were able to get a ride back down to our hotel, and we headed to the vegetarian restaurant Moosewood, a world famous but laid back place, for a nice dinner.

Cate was a great sport during the trip, and it did not go unrewarded. She picked up merch at nearly every college store! She is truly "All Ivy!"

We will see where she ends up and Nicholas, too!