Today, I enjoyed sleeping in until 8:30 in the morning. After we got ready to go, Julia, Alex and I walked to the Philadelphia Diner, which is a few blocks away from our dorms. There, we met with Mr. Miranda to check in and plan upcoming excursions. I ordered the French toast, and when I ate it I was once again surprised at how good the food was. During our meal, we discussed when we should meet to visit two more colleges, Swarthmore and Princeton. While I’m enjoying my stay here a lot, touring college campuses has been a highlight of this trip, so I am looking forward to seeing more. After our delicious breakfast, we headed back to our dorms briefly, and then got ready to go on a trip to K-Mart. We met outside of the front gate, and then took the subway over to the 13th Street station in downtown Philadelphia. While I didn’t intend to buy anything, I came along to hang with my friends and to see a little bit more of Philadelphia.
After lunch, I walked with Julia and Abheek and we visited the campus’s gym for the first time. The first thing that struck me was that the gym was very modernized. Getting inside was as easy as swiping my card and walking into the cardio room. While I’ve been walking around a lot each day, I still haven’t been getting enough exercise so it felt great to hop on a treadmill. I warmed up for a few minutes, and then set the machine so I could run for 3 miles. I felt a little bit out of shape because I hadn’t exercised for the past week, but I also had a ton of energy so I spent several minutes sprinting as hard as I could. After the treadmill, it was time for the muscular part of my workout. I spent about 20 minutes lifting weights and then walked back to the dorms with Julia and Abheek.
To avoid informing the rest of the dorms that I had just gotten back from the gym, I took a quick shower. Then I met up with about six of my friends and we decided to look around for a new place to eat dinner. We ended up deciding to eat at a Chinese restaurant called One because the menu looked nice, the prices were reasonable, and it was un-crowded so we would be able to socialize easily. We got some dumplings as appetizers, and then decided on about five different dishes to eat. The meal was served family style, so we each got to try what everyone picked which was fun.
After dinner, we strolled around town briefly and then came back to the dorms. We all settled into my/Alex’s room to watch a movie. The movie is called “Battle Royale”, and it was about a crazy highly fictional experiment of the Japanese government to purify its youth. The movie was ridiculous and in the company of like-minded others, it was extremely entertaining. Here I am surrounded by good friends with my belly full of good food and my body satisfied by a good workout. Tomorrow will be a mental workout. Goodnight.
Brian,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand this: You're on your school's mountain bike team but when you go to the gym you don't try out any of the stationary bikes?
Both of your dining experiences sounded pretty good.
Too bad there were no photos to post about the day. Thank goodness we had Alex who posted a gazillion photos. I knew we could count on Alex. :-)