Good Morning Canadensis!
I’m finally back from my two week hiring road-trip! It was a crazy few days, and lots of fun, but I’m really glad to be back home and back in the office! Now I’m going to rewind and share with you some highlights from my trip!
First off, Brian and I drove a BRIGHT BLUE PT Cruiser from Detroit to Philadelphia. As you can see below, we found another car at our first hotel that seemed to be a good match…
Our first dinner stop was one of Brian’s favorite Kalamazoo restaurants, The Olde Peninsula:
We tried one of the most interesting appetizers I’ve ever seen, Pretzel mozzarella sticks! They were just like normal mozzarella sticks, but instead of breading around the cheese, it’s bits of pretzel! I’d never had anything like that before so it was exciting to try something new, and they were really delicious!
The next day we interviewed at Western Michigan University, and I had my first experience at BiggBy coffee, a new midwest coffee franchise that’s on it’s way to sweeping the nation! All their marketing was colorful and animated:
I don’t know if you can tell from the picture below, but all the menus and signs are cute and adorable, even the drink names are precious: Nutty Buddy, Caramel Marvel, and White Lightning, to name a few…
So enough of that. After happy coffee and a day of interviews we had dinner at a restaurant that had been renovated from an old train station:
The next night we spent some time in Ann Arbor. We tried a restaurant named “Red Hawk”, which had the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had in my whole life:
…and after that, we made a pit stop at the Alpha Delta Pi house, and I stopped to say hello and take a picture:
After a fun day at EMU we were finally off to Ohio! In Ohio we had dinner at a little restaurant across the street from our hotel, comically named “Frickers”
Brian was disappointed in the intensity of his hot wings, but overall it was a fun time! The next day we got to see fun camp friends, and Bridgett Haley took us to Campus Pollyeyes, where she works as a waitress, for their famous breadsticks:
Look how big they are next to the menu!
After that we headed off to Athens, Ohio, and had an amazing time with Martha Archer. She took us out in downtown Athens for some delicious Mexican cuisine!
Casa Nueva was Martha’s recommendation, and she was definitely right on! I’m not usually very experimental with what I order, but since this trip was all about new experiences I thought I’d go out on a limb and try my first Chimichanga, and it was awesome! We had delicious desserts as well, and there were so many vegan friendly options, I couldn’t help but think about one of our best friends, counselor Erica Carey.
The next day we woke up early and Martha gave us a lovely tour of the campus, which was absolutely stellar! If I had seen Ohio U when I was looking at colleges it would’ve posed UVM a serious threat!
That’s a picture of the student center, where we held interviews, and which boasts a beautiful campus view, and a glorious interior. I was honestly in love. We stopped for coffee at “Donkey” which made me feel as though I’d stepped into a coffee shop in Burlington again; I think that’s why I liked Athens so much, it was just like Vermont. The coffee was honestly the best I’ve had in a long time, way better than any Starbucks cup, and it was a much needed morning pick-me-up.
…and of course I had to stop and take a picture with the Alpha Delta Pi house…
After lunch at a cute 1950’s style diner, where I tried my first frittata, we drove off to Pittsburgh.
When we arrived in Pittsburgh Friday evening we met up with Elana Sharir and Ethan Cohen for a delicious dinner at Six Penn Kitchen.
Elana and I indulged our veggie loving selves and ordered an amazing cauliflower appetizer, followed by a super delectable buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese. We were loving it!
Our booth was the one in the front on your right!
For dessert we all shared “The Six Penn Circus”, which was a plate piled high with carnival inspired goodies (cotton candy, caramel corn, whoopee pies, and so on…). You’ll hear all about it in a video coming soon…
So now it’s week two of this journey and Brian has hopped a flight back to New Jersey, leaving me armed with my PT Cruiser and Forti’s Navigon. I spent Saturday in the city with Chris Anderson-Spallone and he took me for an infamous Pittsburgh treat:
At Primanti Brothers, they top your sandwich with Fries and Coleslaw, and while at first I was hesitant, Chris assured me that this was a Pittsburgh favorite, even Karen Sharir loves it here, and so sticking with my promise to try new things, I ordered.
That’s an actual shot of my sandwich! It wasn’t easy to eat, and I may have used my fork a little, but we managed and it was really good!
I'm not kidding, see for yourselves!
So after some great shopping in Shadyside Chris returned me to my hotel near the airport and I watched The Princess Diaries and packed my bags to leave in the morning.
Sunday morning I headed off to Slippery Rock Pennsylvania and I found my hotel was conveniently placed across the street (literally less than 500 feet) from the Grove City Outlets. I guess I HAD to go shopping…
…and had some success. I met one of my friends from Freshman year of college for a little while that evening, and we drove to Sheets to get coffee. Sheets is probably the closest thing to Wawa I saw throughout my trip, so I was very excited!
The next day I interviewed at Slippery Rock, and then made my way off to West Virginia University. I got to see Jess Marinaro and she took me on a tour of the WVU campus, including a cool ride on their little personal monorail cars!
The PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) runs on it’s own! You press a button, tell it where you want to go, and you’re off! It’s not like a monorail, where the cars are all linked together, these are little individual cars! It was so much fun! The next day I did a camp fair and met some great people, and then hopped in my car and drove off to Shippensburg PA.
Shippensburg wasn’t too eventful. I was tired from the long drives, so I went to bed early. The next day I woke up and everything was covered in snow! I pulled up to the University to get my parking pass, and by the time I got back to my parked car, the windows were covered again! The Student Union was beautiful! I met some really great applicants and had some great interviews. After a long snowy day I got back in the Cruiser and drove off to the University of Maryland.
UMD was great! I got to visit with one of my best camp friends and we spent the evening watching our favorite episodes of South Park and playing guitar and singing camp favorites. The next day I woke up and held interviews in the UMD career center, and got to meet up with CIT ’06 Dani Stein for a delicious sushi lunch! She took me to their Greek store, taught me all about their cool school mascot (The Terp), and then I held my last interview for the day!
After Maryland I hopped in the car and made my way back to Philadelphia! It was so good to see the “Welcome to Pennsylvania” sign on the highway. My dad met me at the Philadelphia Airport and I said goodbye to the Electric Blue PT Cruiser. We somehow managed to get all my bags in the car and headed home.
All in all it was a great two weeks. I saw some beautiful campuses, met some great people, and most importantly got to talk about camp constantly! I had a great time with everyone, and I’m more excited than ever for June to arrive!
Alright friends, more blogging later!
