Yay Yale!

Today we met up at the lobby from our hotel at 7:25AM.  I was really excited to visit Yale. When I was in Second grade it was my dream school. I even wrote them a letter. Before we left on Amtrak to Connecticut we grabbed something to eat from Dunkin Donuts. It was the first time I ever tried it and it was really good. I got a Chocolate frosted donut and a caramel iced coffee. After we left straight to the train. 

The ride was about 2 hours long. To me it didn't feel as long. I was sitting next to Mahi the whole time. She was showing me pictures of her hometown and it looked beautiful. I wish I could go visit to see all the animals! On our way she got a little tired and she fell asleep. I thought it was hilarious because she looked like a bobble head. She started falling to the side and her head was just hanging so I put my shoulder to support her head. The whole time I couldn't stop laughing. The people sitting next to us were starting at me. When she woke up and I told her everything we both thought it was really funny. 

Bricks everywhere

Once we arrived to New Haven, Connecticut we got off. We walked all the way to Yale. From far away I thought it was gorgeous. Everything looked part of a castle with bricks. We went inside an office and inside there was a lot of history. We even saw the Yale bulldog. It was stuffed inside a glass which made me really uncomfortable. I am really against that! We all decided to sit down and none of us realized the girl sitting by us was out tour guide. 

Castle look alike

Poor dog

Our tour guide's name was Sarah and she was extremely nice! She made everything about Yale really interesting. The first thing she said that was a huge shock was about the green at Yale. Years ago it was a cemetery. They decided they wanted to build something for the community so they removed the tombstones and left the buried people under there. Until this day the people are still under there. A couple years ago on Halloween there was a huge storm. One of the trees fell which causes a skeleton to ride from the bottom. Since it was Halloween, many people thought it was a prank. No one had a clue that it was an actual human skeleton from someone that was buried there more than 300 years ago. I thought it was insane. 

At Yale, there is a 36 credit requirements to graduate. About 55% of the students there are on financial aid which was really surprising. It makes me feel a lot more relieved when I know a school tries to help students a lot with financial aid. Overall Yale encourages and tries to push students to try many different subjects out of their comfort zone to expand their knowledge. I thought it was really funny that the school's original name was not Yale. It was Colleget School. Many of the statues there had similar stories to the ones at Harvard. The statues weren't the actual person they claim they are, they just picked a person on campus who looked to most similar to the actual person and decided to make the statue based on their looks. Just like Harvard as well the school is very diverse and freshman are required to live in the halls. 

"Nathan Hale"

Law School!

What I thought was really amazing were the buildings and the stories of the guy who build them. He was really into making buildings look old so he would do anything to make them look that way. He started a fire on the roof, he broke windows on purpose and glued them back together, he dropped acid to make it look a different color, he put these rocks in this one water so they would all get different Ph levels. Although he sounded crazy I thought it was really interesting and entertaining. 

Since I am in the Law Academy, I was really excited to look at the Law school there. Unfortunately we passed by it really quick. The theatre there was really nice as well and spacious. Right there we met Linda who was really polite. He told us all about the theatre and the roof on the stage is really high so people can Hang from the top. 600 people for in the audience. She mentioned that sometimes depending on the show the tickets sell out really quick and other times only the bottom seats fill up. 

So far Yale was my favorite University. Everything about it I really loved. I feel as it was meant to be that way since I was really interested in it since I was about 8 years old although I barely knew anything about it. The only thing I didn't like was the places around it. It looked really sketchy in some parts. 

Beautiful Buildings

Tower look alike

Pizza time!

Yummy yummy in my tummy

After the tour we went to a pizza restaurant. I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza and shared some mozzarella sticks with Komal. Everyone was sharing their food. There was calamari, breadsticks, and chicken wings. It was all very delicious but I really couldn't eat everything although I wish I could have. I had a really good time eating there. 

Roman coins that portray powerful women in ruler's lives

Once we were done eating we left to the Peabody Museum of Natural History. I was really into everything in there and unlike the last museum we went to, the staff were really nice. They had a lot of Picasso paintings. They also had costumes from a long time ago that were made from chicken feathers. There was this other thing that was made from actual animal skin and fur. I really didn't like that! One of the elevators in there was HUGE! It could literally be a room in there! Another elevator was clear, it was really fun. 

Picasso 

Amazing art

Cool Marble Guy

After the museum we went to Ashley's Ice Cream shop. Everyone got something except Erin and I. We both weren't really feeling ice cream at the moment. Once everyone finished eating we went walking back to the Amtrak station to head back to Connecticut. 

While Ms. Neal was renting a van... Can you spy me? 

Today was a great day. I really enjoyed Yale and can't wait to learn a lot more about it when I email Sarah for more information.