See You Later Rhode Island

The countdown until the day I go home is over now. To be honest, I was enjoying my time in the East Coast so much that going home was hardly ever on my mind. It’s so strange how staying there for two weeks and five days was enough to make Rhode Island feel like home. Packing my bags was easy because I never had the time to fully unpack my suitcases. I went to the weight scale in the hotel bathroom to weigh myself with the suitcase and without it to see if my check-in bag weighed less than 50 pounds. But I knew the scale must have been broken because my weight is definitely not 84 pounds. So, I went into Maria and Thao’s hotel room and weighed my check-in bags there. They were both less than 50 pounds so I was all good to go. 

I walked to the mall to return a shirt that I bought for my friend because I realized that it was too small. I decided to eat breakfast there too since I had to be in the lobby by 11 AM. Jenny and NEMOW (the 9 ILCers for the Women and Leadership Program at Brown University) walked to Gourmet Heaven to get lunch to eat either at the zoo or the airport. I decided to eat my salad in the car ride to the zoo because I have no patience when it comes to food. During this trip, I made healthier habits like drinking lots of water and valuing vegetables over greasy foods. Good job YeonSoo.

After we all got our food to go, we walked back to Hotel Providence and the workers at the hotel helped us back our luggage into the van and taxi. It was a sort of a hectic process because there are ten girls and each of us has at least two suitcases. After getting our entire luggage into the two cars, we were off to the Roger Williams Zoo, which was only about 15 minutes from the hotel. With the help of the handy dandy iphone, my chaperone Jenny found her way to the zoo pretty fast. She talked to us about how helpful it is that we have a GPS on our phones to navigate us. Jenny also mentioned how much Don wanted her to memorize directions ahead of time. Yes, that sounds like Don. 

When we got to the zoo, the heat took most of the energy away from us. Although I couldn’t say hi to every animal at the zoo, I got to meet some of my close friends like donkey and alpaca. When we got to the elephants, all the girls spent thirty minutes looking at elephants eat with their trunk. I waited outside for them to come out, while I ate more of my salad. After a while, I started to feel sorry for all of the animals at the zoo because they didn’t look happy. The only animal that looked happy were the goats ONLY because we were feeding them at the petting zoo. Other than the goats, the animals looked as tired as I was and didn’t move around as much as they do in documentary films. I now understand why there are so many people against the Oakland and San Francisco Zoo. Forcing animals to stay inside a gate is cruel and restricts them from being who they truly are. Lions should be able to kill other big animals and anteaters should be able to eat ants.

Good bye East Coast

San Francisco from the plane

We got to our airport two hours before our flight because Jenny doesn’t like to be on time. Just like Don, she believes that being early is better than being on time. While Jenny went to go drop off the van at the store near our hotel, the rest of us weighed our check-in bags. Luckily, my bags weighed 44 pounds and 30 pounds. I deserve a high five for that. On the plane ride, I made sure that I slept for a long time because I have school tomorrow. When the plane was landing, I could automatically tell that we were in the Bay Area. Going on this trip has really made me appreciate things more at home like the bathroom and wind. 

On our way to grab our luggage, I found my friend holding flowers up to welcome me back in the Bay Area. It was nice seeing families reunite with their loved ones with posters, hugs, and flowers. I would like to thank the Ivy League Connection again for definately giving me an opportunity of a lifetime. One year ago, I would have never thought of leaving California for college. Thank you for opening my eyes to new doors.