There's a Dumpster Outside My Window

You know how the girls were the ones who were late yesterday? Well guess who was late today? Raqeeb. 

Ms. Sciacca told us to be downstairs in the lobby at 9:45, and she said 9:30 for the girls, so we would arrive on time. We got there at 9:40, still 5 minutes earlier than the time we had to be leaving. Minutes went by, and still no Raqeeb. 9:45 had come and gone and he still wasn't there, wasn't answering his phone, so we were about to go up to see if he was even awake. When the elevator doors opened there was Raqeeb.

After breakfast at a nearby cafe, we returned to the hotel to grab our luggage and finally take a Lyft to UChicago. Jahnvi and I grabbed an elevator with a couple and they immediately commented on our large luggage, asking if we were world travelers. We laughed and explained why we were in Chicago, and when asked what type of Physics I enjoyed I responded with mechanics. It was a very brief conversation, but a little funny to Jahnvi and I as we really did pack quite a lot. 

The first thing I noticed at UChicago was the buildings. They were all beautiful and most were gothic in style. It's probably the most beautiful college campus I've ever seen. All the typical Ivy covered walls of course, plus buildings that looked truly like grand castles. We checked in at Campus North around 11:30 and dropped off our bags, receiving a UChicago bag, a summer session T-shirt, and water bottle. Then we went to go find the bookstore.

Once we had found the bookstore, we all took full advantage of the $65 cap on what we could get, trying to find things that we could add up to be $65. I ended up with an exercise jacket that reminded me of the soccer jacket that I own, and oddly a pair of UChicago socks. We grabbed a quick bite for later in the day and proceeded to wander around campus until it was time to go back to Campus North to be led to where the welcome was taking place. 

In our UChicago swag

We were some of the first people to show up to be led over, but we ended up going with the third group strangely enough. The first group managed to leave while Raqeeb was in the bathroom, and the second left while Jahnvi was in the bathroom. After that none of us were going to get up to go into the building in case another group left without us. 

At the welcome presentation we were of course, welcomed. We found out what the stickers on our name tags meant which RA we were with. My RA is a girl named Ellie who recently graduated with a Bachelor's in Physics. She led us around on a quick tour, which though nice to see the beautiful buildings didn't help me to orient myself on the campus. Even with maps and the tour I still have no clue where most things are. I'll probably have to wander around campus tomorrow to get a better sense of it. On the brighter note I do know where my class is located. I talked to a few people throughout the tour such as Carly who is also in the Physics of Stars course, Carolina who is from Brazil and here for Microeconomics, and Anna from Boston here for the Neuroscience course. 

We went back for more information about the campus, rules, and resources. This part of the day just seemed to drag on forever. We all knew were going to get to our dorms right after, so it was hard to sit patiently through presentations when we really wanted to know where we would sleeping. When we were dismissed everyone rushed out the doors hoping to get to the front of the luggage lines rather quickly.

Officially they had told us to first get our luggage and then go to get our IDs, so that's what most people ended up doing. Luckily for us Raqeeb's RA had advised on getting your ID first if you didn't get into the luggage line very quickly. We walked to Campus North Residential Commons and went in to find short lines of students getting their IDs, as few people had their luggage so few made it to that line yet. We quickly received our IDs that allow us to get into the building and our rooms. We returned to the luggage line to grab our stuff and when we made it back to our dorm building, the ID line had grown significantly. We slipped past the majority of people and were able to make it to our dorms. 

My dorm room

My dorm is on the third floor and is a  double. By the time I got there my roommate had already been inside and dropped off some of her stuff. I scanned the room and put my bags on the other side of the room before going outside. I talked to other girls on my floor, most of them being upset with the fact that they had singles. Before heading out to find where the rest of the cohort had ended up. 

Both Jahnvi and Cecilia are on the same floor, the 4th floor, which is connected to my floor via a large staircase. I went to find both of them only to find that they were downstairs hoping to eat dinner soon. They were also accompanied by Olivia who Jahnvi met on the tour. We waited for Raqeeb to come down from the 9th floor and then went to eat.

All the food was pretty good except for the pizza that was honestly tasteless.

Following eating we explored our dorms with Olivia and Karla, someone Cecilia had met, to find computer labs, game rooms, study rooms, and practice rooms. Later we went with Olivia and her roommate Kara to Insomnia Cookies, where we had great ice cream cookie sandwiches.