My Buffalo Girl

Beta Gamma, SUNY Buffalo State

It was the week of Halloween so I was getting excited for such a fun holiday, and when I arrived in Buffalo, I was met with a decorated airport. That was a great start to my visit! Another great part of my arrival was that Cheyenne, one of the other TECs, came to pick me up from the airport! I was very excited to visit Buffalo because it's Cheyenne's chapter and she was on her week off, so she was home in in the city.

Airport decorated for Halloween

The first night I was there, Beta Gamma had a pumpkin carving sisterhood event. I was very excited for this, since I clearly love Halloween. They had enough little pumpkins for everyone to carve one and some girls did some very creative things, like a giraffe head and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. I went with ΑΕΦ and it was a little bit difficult to make sure the middle of the A and Φ didn't fall out. I worked on it carefully with a steak knife and it came out right. I was so proud of my pumkin and I asked the woman I was staying with to put it out with her jack-o-lantern. 

My ΑΕΦ pumpkin

For lunch that day Cheyenne took me to her favorite wing place, Duff's. I was excited to eat wings in Buffalo because it seems like something you just have to do. She got medium hot, which is way too hot for me, but she also puts hot sauce on everything. The wings were delicious and lunch was such a great time to catch up with her about traveling and life in general.

I also got to spend time with some of the seniors at the house Cheyenne used to live in. I had a lot of fun getting to know them and hanging out together.

Molly, me, Cheyenne, Jen

On Wednesday morning, before I left, Cheyenne brought me to a great place for brunch. Pano's is on the main Elmwood Street strip of restaurants and bars, so it's a very cute area. I had French toast and eggs, which were great and I had such a nice time doing some final catching up with Cheyenne!

Post title from: My Buffalo Girl by Mark "Buc" Williams. All of the song lyrics talk about places in Buffalo and things that I saw. If you've ever been to Buffalo, look it up.

Good Morning Baltimore

Colony, Towson University

Another first for me, Baltimore! I had only driven through on a family road trip before so I was excited to see the area. Unfortunately my visit was too short to really sight see downtown or get the chance to try Baltimore crab. I also didn't get to see Liz at Towson because my visit was over the weekend. (Liz was in the HESA program at UConn and advised Alpha Xi for those two years. Now she works in student programming at Towson!) These will be on the top of my to-do list if I go back to Towson next semester.

Some of the colony at ΣΑΕ's event

What I did get the chance to do was attend some other orgs' events and watch halloween movies! When I arrived on campus we headed right to ΣAE's closing ceremony for Paddy Murphy. I had seen it at UConn one year so I actually wasn't surprised by the men carrying a yellow and purple coffin. I also attended ΦΜ's Lion King pageant with the Towson colony. It was entertaining to see the male contestants get up on stage but pageants always get a little inappropriate, and the AEΦs were very good about recognizing this. My favorite activity with them was definitely their Halloween movie sisterhood event. We watched Halloweentown and Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge. I hadn't seen these Disney channel original movies in years and I'm not a fan of scary movies, so they were perfect to get in the Halloween spirit!

Something I didn't know before was that Johns Hopkins is so close to Towson. A friend from UConn is a consultant for ΚΑΘ and is working on expansion there all semester so I got to have dinner with her and her colleague! It was great to spend time with other consultants again and it was so fun to catch up with Aubrey about our experiences and how weird it is to be UConn alumnae. We tried a rotating sushi place called Kyodai in Towson for dinner. It was the second time I had been to a place like it but the fisrt time I actually ate from the conveyer belt. We were all pretty adventurous and the servers were all happy to point out what things were on the belt. It was very good and I liked that each plate only had a few pieces so you could try more things.

Huge pumkin pancake

The next morning a couple of the women I stayed with took me to their favorite breakfast place, First Watch Daytime Cafe. It was pretty busy because it was brunch time on a Sunday but they assured me it was worth it, and it definitely was! I order the seasonal special, the pumpkin pancake breakfast. The pancake was so good. I wish I knew somewhere at home where I could get such good pumpkin pancakes, but then again, trying the local food is one of the best parts about traveling!

Post title from: Good Morning Baltimore from the Hairspray soundtrack. I can sing the entire soundtrack and I love the show/movie but now I know how accurate its depiction of Baltimore is.

American Woman

Epsilon Theta, American University

I really enjoyed getting to visit AU after visitng GW because, even though they are in the same city, the campuses are so different. AU is so pretty and is actually a campus in the city. It has all the benefits of DC, like the public transportation and restauraunts, but with the feeling of being on a campus. 

Quad in the middle of campus

It seemed like everyone at American was so well dressed all the time. Many of these students intern all day and take block classes at night, and yet I don't think I saw more than one person in sweatpants ever.

I spent Founders' Day on campus and it was great to see all the women around dressed up proudly wearing their badges all day! They held a RAD self-defense class in the evening and took part in a community service event in honor of Founders' Day after I had left. 

While I was at American I got to meet up with two different Alpha Xi sisters from UConn that are now living in DC. I met Elyssa at Kramer's Bookstore & Cafe in Dupont Circle for dessert and had a great peanut butter pie. The next night I met Kait at Circa in Dupont Circle for dinner, where I had the mushroom ravioli (so good!). It was great to catch up with them and hear about life in DC!

Both times I went to Dupont Cirle I took the metro bus because it goes right down Massachusetts Ave from AU to Dupont. The first night I somehow got it down and it was pretty easy to take the bus. But when I was going for dinner the next evening taking the bus a nightmare. I was planning to take an early bus to get there in plenty of time and apparently I missed that one because I had to wait another 15 minutes for the next bus. That would have been fine since I planned to be early but as it happened, the next three buses to come by were out of service. By the time I finally made it on a bus and sat through all the traffic, I was so late. I'm going to say it was because of rush hour but it was really just bizarre to me. Thank goodness Kait was understanding! I learned from her that walking places is much more reliable, even though it may take longer. 

Shower curtain map of the DC Metro

The women I stayed with were so fabulous! They offered me pancakes and hung up my coat for me, and even gave me my own key to get in. They had this great map up on the wall that I studied to try to get a feel for where everything was in DC.

Post title from: American Woman by Lenny Kravitz

DC Chillin

Alpha Gamma, George Washington University

I was super excited to visit DC because of all the cool things to do around GWU! I had gotten to see some of the city when I lobbied with the FSPAC in April but I had more opportunity and freedom to explore this time. 

Alpha Epsilon Phi townhouse

The chapter has a townhouse in the middle of "campus" near a bunch of other fraternities and sororities. It seemed so city to have an actual townhouse (I always describe Husky Village as townhouses) and the inside was decoraded so well! It was very modern and cute, but with AEPhi in mind beause they had lots of green and giraffes. This is where some of the executive board lives and is also where I stayed during my visit.

Living room in GW's townhouse 

During my time between meetings I took the chance to explore around the monuments and Georgetown. I had seen the monuments before but decided to do the whole loop down from the Capital to Lincoln. Its a much longer walk than it seems but it was such a nice day so I enjoyed the exercise.

I had never been to Georgetown so I was really looking forward to it! I got to do a little shopping (a.k.a. pick out some warmer apparel for this chilly weather) and try Georgetown Cupcakes.

Me in front of the Capital building

Post title from: Chillin by Wale

Going to Maryland

Alpha Mu, University of Maryland

I was excited to visit UMD because I've known a bunch of people who went there and the campus culture seemed exciting. I got to stay in the AEPhi house on Fraternity Row and was with the chapter for their fall philanthropy event and parents' brunch.

Alpha Epsilon Phi house

Their philanthropy event was the 4th annual Wingman competition, where people eat chicken wings as fast as they can in an effort to become the Wing Queen and the Wingman. The chapter had all the wings donated and had shirts made for eat competitor. The event marked the beginning of parents weekend, so lots of parents joined the crowd and some even joined in the parents round at the end. It was a very successful event with a great turnout. 

One of the sorority rounds at Wingman

The weather was gorgeous while I was at UMD. One day it got all the way up to 75 but the other days were nice and finally felt like fall! Campus was beautiful and students were out everywhere enjoying the sunshine. I took a walk the long way through campus to get more of a feel for te school and saw so much pretty scenery.

Post title from: Going to Maryland by The Mountain Goats

Meet Virgina

Beta Theta, Virginia Commonwealth University

My visit to VCU was the first time I actually stayed in Virgina, as opposed to just driving though. Richmond seemed pretty cool, with lots of things to do around the area. I spent most of my time on campus, either in the library Starbucks or the student center. Most of the time I set up camp in Starbucks to meet women there and do work the rest of the day. Since it was such a short visit, I didn't get much of a chance to explore the area, but the streets right on the edge of campus had lots of different food options that were good to try.

One of my favorite things when I travel is meeting up with other consultants. At VCU I had lunch with two! One day I met a Lamda Chi Alpha consultant and the next day I got to meet up with an AEPi that I knew from FEA Field Staff. I think making those connections with other people on the road is so important becasuse it reminds me how many other people are sharing the same experiences.

This post's title comes from the Train song Meet Virginia. Not so creative, but I'm a fan of Train and it was my first time in Virginia.

A little bit of Florida

Phi Eta, Jacksonville University

I completed the Florida trio by visiting Jacksonville! I got to drive from Gainesville which was fun, but also gave me a very of some very country roads. But I listened to the country music stations the whole way there, which I loved. I didn't know going into it, but Jacksonville is in a pretty country area as well. When I asked one of the sisters her response was that Jacksonville is a "city full of county people," which I came to realize was a perfect description.

The Phi Eta sisters were actually from all over, so I enjoyed hearing about different part of the country and how they've adapted to northern Florida. There were a few New Yorkers and even one woman from CT! 

Mural in the AEPhi hall

On my last day visiting Jacksonville, we participated in a community service project with the Sigma Chi chapter at the zoo. We all thought we would be picking up trash and cleaning up, but instead we were asked to prime and paint the big room they use for field trips and birthday parties. One of the walls was green with giraffes painted on it so covering that up was sad for the phis. 

Getting ready to paint at the Jacksonville Zoo

Lucky for us, after we volunteered, the zoo staff let us in to the zoo as a thank you for our painting work. We were all so excited to see different animals but I was most excited for the giraffes. JU calles them by the Spanish word for giraffe but I still call them all Genny! 

When they brought me back to the airport, I saw that the lightpost flags were alternating with the UF Gator and the Georgia G. On the bottom each flag it said FLGA.org for the Florida/Georgia line. So I think you all can guess which artisit I chose my blog title from... Florida Georgia Line! This worked so perfectly because Jacksonville is right at the top of Florida about 15 minutes from the Georgia line AND it's a very country area. I chose the song Country in My Soul and the whole line is "A little bit of Florida, a little bit of Georgia, and whole lotta country in my soul." 

I really loved my little vacation to Florida but by the end I was definietly ready for some cooler weather. Now I'm headed north where I'm excited for the changing leaves!

Give a cheer for the Orange and the Blue

Alpha Tau, University of Florida

Visiting UF was a very cool experience! An SEC school with so much spirit and an old chapter with lots of their own traditions. I got to stay in their house in the housemother's suite and I could literally get anything I could need without leaving. One of the things I loved about the house was that the halls were lined with old composites from the 70s and 80s. I was excited to look at them all and find Sami's (my pledge siter from UConn) mom and aunt. I thought it was so cool that I found the composite they are both on!

I also got to see Julie Bunson while at UF! She is a former AEPhi TEC that is now there for grad school in higher education and student affairs (the program I want to do as well!). It was fun to connect while I was in town and to catch up with her. 

As I'm sure many of you know, UF has so much school pride. Everything was blue and orange and they are all huge football fans. So much so that the Phis and many other students were roadtripping to Louisiana to go to the LSU game. As fun as that would be, a 12 hour bus ride in the middle of the night does not sound ideal. But I dedicated the title of this post to all the UF spirit by using a line from their fight song.