Although Don told us to sleep the night before the trip instead of staying up and sleeping on the plane, I was too excited to go to sleep anyways. Unfortunately, I hit that time where I actually fell into a deep sleep about twenty minutes before my alarm went off and when the time came, I went straight for the snooze button. I was finally forced to wake up by my mom and reluctantly did so. However, the most painful part of this 2:00 AM dilemma was not actually waking up, but trying to put in my contacts in my bloodshot eyes (Maybe I should have worn glasses instead like Alex and Rachel. Well, you live and you learn).
To my surprise I was the first of my cohort to arrive at El Cerrito High School for the pre-departure meet-up, keeping my streak alive from the Cornell dinner. After Don weighed all our luggage (mine came out at 31.78 pounds), he gave us some words of wisdom that mostly pertained to blogging. Thanks to Don, I will be sure to share as many photos with you all as possible.
We departed for SFO in a shuttle, but the ride was pretty quiet since all of us were still a little groggy from the lack of sleep. Once we got to the airport, our check-in counters weren't even open yet, and to my surprise, there were people earlier than us waiting in line. Once we got all our luggage checked-in and our boarding passes finalized, we headed to the security checkpoint which, again, was not open yet. When we all got through security, we went to go get some breakfast. Unfortunately, I devoured mine before I could take a photo of it. After that it was time to board the plane.
The flight overall was extremely bumpy, it seemed that the pilot tried to find every possible turbulence spot to fly through. Now I'm not one to complain since I, for some strange reason, love bumpy plane rides. Once we landed we headed towards the baggage claim area that was literally half a mile from the boarding gate of the plane. When we all got our luggage we waited for our ride because, apparently, they forgot when to pick us up. Just like the Brown-I group, we rode in a Chevy Suburban.
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| Our lengthy trek towards the baggage claim |
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| Citizens Bank Park |
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| Oh, hello UPenn! |
When we got to the hotel, confusion ensued. The front-desk clerk told us that our rooms had not been paid for yet so there was this seemingly endless conversation between Mr. Chan-Law and Don and the receptionist. Finally, they got it settled and we were off to our rooms (I'm rooming with Eric Wang). Saying this hotel room is amazing is quite an understatement. I mean, the TV itself has over 2000 channels!
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| Did I mention that our hotel room has an iPad? |
For our first dinner in Philadelphia, we went to Del Frisco's Steakhouse. With some background information, we all found out that the building used to be a bank. The food there was amazing! However, the wait was a little longer than expected, but it was worth the wait. As this day wraps up, I am looking forward to the campus visit to UPenn tomorrow! Well, off to bed to try and adjust to the new time zone.
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| Del Frisco's |
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| Front entrance to Del Frisco's |
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| Amazing wine “cellar" inside Del Frisco's |
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| My phenomenal 24 oz Prime Porterhouse |
Isn’t it amazing how some people--whether they be bus drivers, taxi drivers or your own relatives--seem to find every pot hole in the road to run over? And now you’ve found an airline pilot doing the same thing with the “potholes” in the sky. At least it keeps you from sleeping your way across the country.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you’re probably telling yourself that you WANTED to sleep on the plane (in spite of my admonitions otherwise) and now, because you failed to rest properly BEFORE this trip and you weren’t able to catch up on the plane, you’re walking around Philly like a zombie because you’re mentally zonked.
Well, at least you’re eating well.