The Day After

Sunday

This was probably the least arduous day (in terms of physical labor and fatigue…heheh), seeing as we all woke up around 9:30 in order to grab free coffee and donuts from the motel’s continental breakfast. We spent the remainder of the morning at 43 Edwards Street moving Colleen into her new New Haven apartment. This entailed searching for a lost key, emptying the U-Haul, and normal moving stuff that I don’t feel like expanding on here.

The afternoon was spent exploring downtown New Haven and the Yale campus. The area is really cute but not so cute that it looks artificial. The area has a very urban, worn-down appearance that suites it well and houses lots of eclectic shops (and the standard Dunkin Donuts…the Starbucks of New Haven, of course). At times it has a European atmosphere, especially when you approach the mammoth Gothic cathedrals and university buildings or walk past restaurants’ plastic outdoor furniture.

I was struck by how very different it was from Wake Forest, North Carolina and by how much I missed being in an urban culture. I didn’t realize how foreign the Carolinas were until I left them and felt a completely different level of comfort and intrigue. That’s not to say I don’t like Chapel Hill (eh..Wake Forest is a different story, though), because it’s a fun place to be for college, but I think that my heart ultimately lies with cities. Cities that aren’t in the South, that is.




After a two and half hour walk my dad went back to the hotel to crash, where Colleen and I joined him briefly for a viewing of a cheesy Lizzie Maguire movie that my dad really wanted to watch. Colleen and I left him to get his fill of Disney and we trekked to the Milford mall and Target to buy clothing (me) and apartment supplies (her). We hit up Uno’s Pizzeria and enjoyed a nice, relaxing dinner seasoned with good conversations and deep-dish pizza. yum. In a way, we celebrated more than her birthday as we reflected on the past year and Colleen’s undergrad experience. There was some nostalgia in the air on both our parts but it was so refreshing to talk with Colleen. I absolutely love spending time with her. At the core, we haven’t changed at all since we were little and used to warp each other’s minds and fan the flame. But now it’s even better, because we still retain our innate weirdness and bring it out in each other when we are together, yet we are able to have a level of conversation that is more “adult” and edifying and it’s really cool. And though during the school year we both get busy and sort of pave our own separate paths, whenever we meet again we are able to pick up from where we left off. I feel so blessed to have a big sister who is such a good role model…so godly and full of integrity, compassionate and with a heart for others, talented, but completely wacky.

I can’t wait to visit her in her apartment this year.

We spent the remainder of the evening doing Sudoku and watching TV. I got hooked on this really bizarre Alfred Hitchcock-ish horror flick with Richard Gere and Uma Thurman. I finally fell asleep around I don’t know when…maybe 1:30?