Providence, Rhode Island, December 2007

After visiting Katie I took the train up to Providence, Rhode Island to visit Allie at Brown University for a couple of days. I didn't realize when booking this ticket that Allie would be in the middle of finals week. As such, College Hill was pretty quiet, apparently it is pretty lively every other time of the year. I got into Providence about 3pm to snow flurries, on top of the 2 feet of snow they had received the day before. The problem was, it froze that night, so all the sidewalks were extremely slick, I must've slipped like ten times walking up Thayer Street. Turns out Uggs have zero traction - who would've thought? We ended up going out to her favorite pizza joint for dinner and then caught the late showing of Polar Express at the IMAX theater in downtown Providence, part of our festive countdown to Christmas.

The next day Allie gave me a tour of the campus, we slipped and slid along the pathways through the campus. We took some pictures in the main green, Brown's version of a quad, which is a rectangle of gorgeous old buildings, and was covered in a white blanket of snow. We walked through the Greek Row, and by the famous Brown gate, where all the freshman ceremoniously walk through at convocation, and then all graduates exit out of.

We walked up to the gym and I got to see Allie's locker room - which was covered in fiesta decorations; streamers, sombreros, and cactus's, apparently freshman decorate for certain games. After Allie did some studying and I did some shopping we took the trolley up to Federal Hill, known for its famous Italian restaurant row for dinner. After dinner we waited in the freezing cold for the trolley to return. I was jumping and dancing in place trying to keep warm, much to Allie's chagrin. She claims to now be used to the cold weather...I don't think that is something I could get used to. Even when you finally get inside, it takes at least 10 minutes to defrost!

Allie had yet another night of studying, but we grabbed Starbucks and made a quick stop at the bookstore for some Brown University duds and in the morning before I took the train to Boston for my flight back to the west Coast. A quick, mellow side trip, but it was great to see a slice of her college experience.