Day One, Trip Two

I jolted awake at 3:15 AM when my alarm sounded. But when I remembered what it was for I quickly hopped out of bed and pulled on my comfy airplane clothes. My mom and I walked from our house down to El Cerrito High School to catch the shuttle to the airport with the rest of my cohort. When the van arrived, we piled in and drove out to the Oakland Airport. We got to the airport with plenty of time to get through security and have a bit of breakfast. 

Beautiful clouds on the first leg of our trip.

I was seated by the window at the back of plane next to a delightful woman also from the Bay Area.  We had a wonderful conversation about studying abroad and life in high school. She told me of her daughter's experiences and gave me some great advice about traveling and living on my own. It was then that I was reminded how much I love traveling. Meeting new and interesting people is one of the best parts of the trips I've taken with Ivy League Connection. Last summer, I met amazing students and faculty at all the schools I visited and I am bound to meet more this trip, starting with my new airplane friend. 

After a long flight to Chicago, where we stopped shortly to pick up passengers, we finished our journey across the country and were greeted by frigid East Coast air when we went to pick up the rental car. Again, we shoved our luggage in to the van and climbed in. After finding our way to the freeway entrance, everything began to look familiar. I recognized the mall and Federal Hill. I recognized the Mexican restaurant where we ate our first night in Providence this summer and when we stepped in to Hotel Providence, it felt like I had never left. We got our room assignments and went our separate ways to freshen up before dinner. 

Interesting landscaping from above.

Then we walked around the block looking for a place to eat and settled on a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese food restaurant. We sat down and as the tea warmed our bodies, we began to shed our scarves and jackets. We had a filling dinner with conversation of our Action Plans and the progress we had made. Ms. Kronenberg gave great advice on how to run an effective meeting and had great ideas on where to take my plan next now that the election was over. 

Now, I'm sitting in my room blogging and I am so happy to be back on the East Coast. I love the cold weather and I look forward to exploring some more before the Symposium begins tomorrow evening.