San Luis Obispo Is Where We Want To Be

Beta Lambda, California Polytechnic State University

My week at Cal Poly was everything I had hoped it would be! I visited them quickly last winter but I didn't get the chance to explore SLO or even really meet all of the chapter. So I was very excited to visit for work week and spend so much time getting to know everyone!

First off, the week was beautiful. It was 80 and breezy almost everyday and the mountainous scenery surrounding SLO is amazing. Someone might have thought I'd never seen mountains, the way I admired them each day.

This didn't really fit in anywhere else, so I just have to briefly comment on the word I heard a million and one times during my visit: "basic." I literally heard an explanation or debate over the definition at least once per day. I don't know that I had ever heard someone explain it, so if I wasn't sure what qualified someone as "basic" before my visit, I sure know now. It was actually hilarious to hear the women talk about who was basic and why (i.e. wearing Lulu and drinking lattes).

Cal Poly's work week started off strong and there was "sorority school," as they call it, everyday of the week. One morning we started the day off by visiting a local elementary school, which Beta Lambda has worked with before. They brought a ton of school supplies to donate and then we all played with the kids during their morning recess!

Beta Lambda was so happy to spend the morning at Pacheco Elementary!

Another fun part of work week was getting to spend some much time bonding. One day after workshops were done we went on sister dates and I got fro-yo with a couple phis. Then at the end of the day on Friday, I led the group activity shown below. The chapter had to fit onto one sheet and, while still standing on it, flip it over. Everyone worked really well together, and I think they had fun in-between the frustration of the activity.

  

  

Beta Lambda got close during this fun teaming building activity!

It wouldn't be a complete visit without trying some great local places and lucky for me, SLO had no shortage of those! I had so many great meals because almost all my meetings were set up to take me to the great places around the area. Enjoy the mouth-watering photos below!

Acai bowl and fresh orange juice from Sally Loo's Wholesome Cafe

Vanilla iced coffee and lox bagel sandwich at Kreuzberg Coffee Company

San Luis Obispo Donut Company

Chocolate glazed, Maple glazed, Peanut butter - The maple is incredible!!

Strawberry and Nutella crepe at Le Ciel

Every Thursday night in SLO, the main road downtown turns into Farmers Market. It is a fun tradition for the town and tons of Cal Poly student attend, especially first years during Welcome Week. It was unlike any farmers market I had ever seen. A lot of the booths were selling fresh produce, but there was also carnival food, full meals, live performances and Cal Poly clubs and local shops promoting themselves. Beta even had a Pie-A-Brother booth. The Panhellenic community took full advantage of this event. Every sorority was out in their matching pre-recruitment tanks, handing out "Go Greek" hair ties and meeting potential new members.

Higuera Street gets packed every Thursday night for Farmer's Market

On Friday night I attended Shabbat dinner with most of the chapter. There is no Hillel house so they use a local synagog. I went early with Dylan to help set up and we all thought there was way too much food. We ended up being wrong about that because way more students showed up than they had ever had! Over 100 students came, which is huge for Cal Poly. A ton of them were also first years so the AEPhis and AEPis were all on their recruitment A-game. I met a lot of new people and really enjoyed spending time at Hillel for the evening!

On Saturday we did tons of crafting. There was so much to be done: bid day posters, door decs, nautical bid day decorations, tissues paper flowers, the new wooden letters... the list goes one. Fortunately I like to craft and am pretty good at it, so my job for most of the day was free handing sea creature shapes, cutting them out, and outlining them is glitter glue. I am obsessed with the sea horse! The posters are going to make such cute bid day signs for their new members!

   

      

Crafting for a nautical bid day!

Sunday was finally the WOW Showcase. We set up the gorgeous new letters and easy-up tent in the morning and Beta Lambda was ready meet some PNMs! They all looked so cute in the summery orange tanks!

Unfortunately I had to head to the airport during the fair. I was glad so many women were there to say goodbye to but I was sad to go. I honestly would have stayed if I wasn't going home to my mom and my own bed!

I am so proud of all the Beta Lambda ladies! They are AEPhi's newest chartered chapter but I don't think people would know after seeing them operate. They have made such strides and I am so excited for Cal Poly's first recruitment as an installed chapter!

San Luis Obispo by Coyote

It's Florida Time

Alpha Tau, University of Florida

UF was my first non-recruitment visit of the year so I was looking forward to just spending time with the chapter, without the added hectic activities of recruitment. My visit started off great when the new member educator, Dani, picked me up at the airport. After giving me a driving tour of campus, I spent most the afternoon with her and meeting more Phis.

On Thursday and Friday I got to see pieces of campus, like the Reitz Union. I found the closest Starbucks and I saw the rows of scooters parked on campus. Yes, at UF tons of students drive scooters around campus, only they call it scooting, as in "I can scoot you to class." I don't know if it's just me, but I found this pretty funny. But it does make for an easy way to get around campus!

AEPhi had Father/Daughter Weekend during my visit so I was looking forward to the fun events, on top of game day! Friday all the dads (and some families) came into town and AEPhi hosted a light buffet. Meeting the dads was fun and I loved seeing that so many of them were fraternity brothers!

Saturday was my first SEC game day! UF is our only AEPhi chapter at an SEC school so I definitely got lucky getting to attend. The first thing that was different for me was seeing girls in dresses to tailgate and attend a football game. I obviously knew that existed, but had just never been to a game in a place where that was the culture. There was definitely a combination of dresses, rompers and shorts/t-shirts in the sorority community. One thing I loved to see was all the Jack Rogers and cowboy boots! And of course I loved all the men in their blue and orange polos and visors. 👌

I found Rachel (an AEPhi @ UCF) before the game!

After the AEPhi barbecue with the families, I headed out with some Phis to see the tailgates. It was so fun to see the alumni tailgates and all the wild parties going on throughout campus!

Something I was certainly not used to on game day was the heat and insane humidity. I literally started sweating the second we stepped outside. I drank so much water all day and into the evening and I still felt dehydrated.

Great view at my first SEC and Gator Game! 

It was still so humid at 8pm with the sun down but that didn't stop me from enjoying the game. It started off a bit slow but picked up in the second half. I slowly learned some of the cheers and the chomp and I liked the song they sing at the end of third quarter. But the end of the game was when it got really interesting. UF and Kentucky went into three overtimes before the Gators finally won! It was quite the long game but staying the whole way through was so worth it!

We stayed for all three overtimes!

Father/Daughter Weekend ended with a nice bagel brunch for all the families. The desserts were amazing (especially the pumpkin bread) and the chapter sold tons of old shirts as a fundraiser! It was such a successful weekend and I was so proud to see the committee feel so great about their event!

After such an amazing weekend with these ladies, I didn't want to leave! I could get used to the 90% humidity and really move into the study room. But I left with some fun merch and a new home in Florida!


Florida Time by Bob Seger

Pittsburgh Please Don't Go

Nu, University of Pittsburgh

I was excited to return to Pittsburgh for recruitment again! I had such a great time getting to know the executive board (pictured below) by jumping right into formal recruitment over the weekend and staying in the suite with them. They are an amazing group of woman and I was so happy to see that they are all so close and work so well together.

There were some pretty late nights staying up to make lists but there were also late nights of just hanging out and being goofy. It felt so great to sit around with these women and laugh with all of them till our abs hurt, as they gave each other bangs or decided to paint a mural. Listening to them sing their old preference songs and going through ritual books from the 1920s was so cool, too. Being with the Nu chapter in the suite reminded me of camp more than any other chapter I have visited thus far. It really make me think about how special sorority bonds are and that the chapter is a really family away from home.

There was no recruitment on the week days, so I took some time to explore the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, right around campus. This mostly meant going to the famous restaurants and trying good food.

My first stop was Primanti Brothers, known for piling french fries into their sandwiches. I had heard about if from a few people and the idea intrigued me so I stopped in for lunch on Monday. My favorite part was obviously the fries and the sandwich was so big that eventually I started pulling out the fries and just dipping them in ketchup!

Pastrami sandwich (with fries, cole slaw, tomatoes & cheese)

When I was looking for places to try, Dave & Andy's Homemade Ice Cream came up. I probably would have gone for ice cream no matter what, but after reading all the raving reviews, I knew I definitely had to go! They had some really great flavor combinations and I had heard the waffle cones were a must. The shop was so cute inside, and smelled amazing too. The ice cream was fabulous and the flavors I got were delicious! If you like ice cream at all (I clearly love it), you must go to Dave & Andy's when in Pittsburgh!

Birthday cake & Caramel cookie marshmallow ice cream in a waffle cone

The last of my food adventures was to Pamela's Diner. I came across this place when I was searching Yelp for breakfast places near Pitt. Everyone raved about the hotcakes and I didn't even realize it was a full diner until I walked in. It is such a cute little place, with colorful decor and they only take cash. I went with the chocolate chip banana hotcakes and when I ordered the waitress was very excited for me to try them. Pamela's hotcakes are crepe-style pancakes and mine were wrapped up and stuffed with banana slices, chocolate chips and whipped cream. I usually go for eggs at breakfast but these were amazing and definitely worth every calorie!

Chocolate chip banana hotcakes

I had such a great time at Pitt!! After bonding with so many women, it was really hard to leave. But I've still got their cute songs stuck in my head and I'll be thinking of them as they finish up recruitment this weekend!

Sin City by The Essex Green

September In Seattle

UW Colony, University of Washington

I was excited to return to the city of Seattle because it is such a cool place. For anyone that has never been, UW is located in the University District and downtown is about a 20 minute bus ride or 10 minute cab ride south. Campus and the Greek community have that campus feel but "the Ave," which is two blocks away, still gives it an urban feel. The Ave is filled with fast food, lots of local Asian restaurants and a few shops. Also frequent on the Ave are homeless people. They don't usually do much but the "Ave rats" definitely gave me a bit of a scare. I don't think I would ever get used to that.

Switching back to west coast time was a bit of a struggle for me this week. I went to bed at 10 or 11pm every night and, without fail, woke up three times before my alarm each morning. But I got into my ritual and would venture down to Starbucks on the Ave every morning for my caffeine fix.

I really enjoyed the fun workshops that UW's recruitment chair put together for everyone. One of my favorite involved each woman drawing an enlarged version of a small square of AEPhi's insignia. When we put them all together it actually looked pretty good! We also had a lot of fun playing four square as recruitment questions game and drawing our ideal new members!

My contribution to the columns!

Oreo on a stick from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory

Monday afternoon I got the chance to go downtown and explore. I headed back to a couple places I knew from my last visit, like the original Nordstrom and Pike Place market, and then down to the waterfront.

I was super excited to stop at Ivar's Fish Bar to try the famous fish 'n chips I'd heard so much about! Ivar's has been a Seattle institution, with multiple locations (including the airport), since 1938. The Alaskan cod was fabulous and I recommend you stop in if ever in Seattle!

I walked around a ton and saw so much of Seattle. It was such a gorgeous day and I really enjoyed exploring such a cool city.

View of the city from Pier 62 on the Seattle Waterfront

The highlight of my trip was getting to attend the Phired Up presentation that UW Panhellenic put on for all the chapters. KJ McNamara was the speaker and I had met her over the summer during consultant training in Indianapolis so I was so excited to see her again. I pumped up all the women I was going to the program with and by the end of it they were all obsessed with her too!

KJ is hilarious and told some great stories that had the whole ballroom cracking up. I learned a new term for your closest friends that I love and am totally going to use now. They are your "hide-the-body" friends because if they showed up at your house in the middle of the night with a dead body in their trunk, you would immediately be on board to hide the body, no questions asked. But things also got real when she told a few emotional stories about her relationship with her sorority sisters and how they are still there for each other when life gets hard. A lot of women in the room teared up, including myself. I really connected with the stories she told and it made me think about how much I value my alumna sorority experience.

My last day in at UW was gorgeous, especially for Seattle! So I decided to take advantage of the weather and take a jog around campus. It is such a pretty place and I thought it was so cool that the campus has a waterfront activities center. Below is the view from the dock where students can take out canoes and kayaks!

It was a great visit overall and I got the nicest card from the colony when I left this morning. But I'm also excited to be heading back east for the week!


September In Seattle by Shawn Mullins

On, Wisconsin!

Sigma, University of Wisconsin

I was very excited to return to Wisconsin in the warm weather and get the opportunity to see all the wonderful things about Madison in the beautiful weather this time! My favorite please, by far, was the terrace! It is the patio behind the student union that looks out onto the lake and it is a very popular spot for students and townies alike. Brittney, Wisconsin's advisor, took me out to the terrace for lunch on one of the most beautiful days. The terrace was filled with people hanging out, drinking and enjoying the weather. There was also no shortage of students sun bathing on the dock and paddle boarding in the lake!

The other amazing part about being out on the terrace was that this is where I tried cheese curds for the first time! Even though I was told these weren't the best ones, I enjoyed this Wisconsin speciality to no end. Cheese curds are basically little chunks of deep fried cheese and they are amazing. They also usually come with some sort of cheesy or mustardy dipping sauce, so how could that be bad.

The most fun I had during my visit was definitely during the practices at the phi house. Wisconsin has some really fun songs and their entrances and exits for formal recruitment are so energetic! My favorite song they did was written to Spice Up Your Life and it was so catchy; a great recruitment song!

My last night was a Friday and on Fridays in Madison every restaurant does a fish fry. So that night I went to Quivey's Grove Stable Grill for the all you can eat fried fish. I obviously also got the cheese curds and it was all so amazing. It's a good thing I don't live in Wisconsin because I would try to eat this stuff for every meal!

On Wisconsin is from the State Song and University fight song