Isolation

The entire day today was dedicated to our visit to Dartmouth College. We woke up, grabbed breakfast, and hit the long road all the way up to Hanover, New Hampshire from Providence, Rhode Island. We had to go through Massachusetts, so one can imagine that it took a long time to drive through everything. I believe the trip totaled around three hours! Nate drove us through and took us back; he deserves recognition for working so hard for us, as he demonstrated today. 

After we arrived, we went straight to the Canoe Club Bistro to have lunch with some students of Dartmouth, a student advisor, and a professor. Josh, Johnny, and I were grouped with two students and the professor in one table, and everyone else were in the other table. We maintained a very good conversation throughout lunchtime; the students told us a lot about Dartmouth. I learned about some of the idiosyncrasies of Dartmouth like the Dartmouth Plan, the quarter system, and the calm community of Hanover. The area is quite isolated from other areas though, and it's much quieter here.

Following lunch, we split off from the people from Dartmouth and went into one of the lecture halls to begin our tour. We had a graduate talk about Dartmouth for a little while, though it did not feel as informative as the more personalized talks during lunch. We had a tour around the campus right after, which I wasn't a fan of, either. The groups were a little too large for my liking, so I did not feel as engaged as I did during the tour during Harvard. 

Following the tour, we went to get some gelato at a place advertised to have "the best gelato in the United States." Sadly, I missed out on it. My stomach wasn't feeling well, and I didn't want to add anything more to it.

We started making our way home after this. Contrary to yesterday's frantic, constant movement all around Cambridge and Boston, we didn't do as much today. Of course, the drive took up a large amount of time, considering that we went somewhere two states away and came back. Some of us played games in the van. I believe one of them was a game where one had to list a name of a place that began with the last letter of the last place listed.

We were given a little time to relax when we got back to the Hotel Providence, again, and we went to grab dinner afterwards at the Teriyaki and Korean House.

I'm starting to rethink some factors in my life already. I still have the last half of high school left, and I think I need a change of course with how my schedule will look. I also want to strengthen my extracurricular activities. So far, this trip has been quite enlightening.