Salutations! (Charlotte’s Web anyone?? 🙂 )
I totally wanted to put up a recap post of my visit to UVA yesterday, but I was pooped from another long day of walking and eating yet again. Thus, I’m comin’ atcha today with a huge photo dump from the past couple of days!
{If you haven’t read the other posts from my great college tour finale, you may want to check out what I think of University of Maryland and Charlottesville!}
Monday
Up and at ’em at 7:30 AM!
Breakfast part 1: banana with coconut peanut butter in the hotel room
Breakfast part 2: trail mix in the hotel room
Breakfast part 3: hunk o’ yummy banana bread at the UVA Days on the Lawn Welcome (pear saved for later)
Super talented a cappella groups entertaining us as we waited for the event to start
Grand Wahoo welcome!
Singing one of their famous anthems
Bavaro Hall
Kinesiology info session
Word.
After all our dining out this past weekend, I was more than ready for these veggies from the dining hall. They had some delicious options!
And then this. Free froyo, people.
Alright, I’m sure you want to know the verdict on University of Virginia, so here’s the rundown:
Pros:
- Gorgeous campus
- Super nice people
- Charlottesville is a very walkable town
- Great education
- Awesome Catholic center
- Blogger/foodie town
- Kinesiology program
- Best campus food I’ve had so far
- The students seem very serious about their studies
- School spirit
Cons:
- Out-of-state tuition is pricey
- Distance (7 hour drive from home)
- Not very close to a big city
- The opportunities did not seem quite as vast as UMD
Conclusion:
I do not think I will attend UVA. As much as I liked my experience at Cville this weekend, UVA just didn’t click with me like UMD did. The price and distance are also major factors. This conclusion took a lot of thinking and pondering!
After the Days on the Lawn finished, mom and I drove to Dulles Airport (near DC) to pick my friend, Victoria, and her mom, who flew in from California! We’ve known each other since we were 5 years old when my family lived in southern California. Victoria is also visiting colleges on the east coast, so I have a buddy for this college decision process!
We went out to dinner with their friends who live in DC, which was fun, delicious, and filling. As if I hadn’t eaten enough this spring break. The restaurant was called Miss Saigon, and the food was absolutely fantastic.
We shared a ton of dishes family style. We also left with four containers of leftovers.
But there’s always room for mango with sticky rice!
I feel like I’ve had a food baby after every dinner on this trip. SO MUCH FOOD.
We did make it over 20,000 steps that day though!
Moves: a crapton of walking.
Champs.
I ended up giving the Polar Loop to my mom so she could track her steps, and we were super excited to see that we made it to 20.6K steps on Monday!
Tuesday
Slept in until 8:30 AM. I basically max out at 8 hours of sleep nowadays.
Coffee and hot cocoa at Illy with Victoria 🙂
We walked around American University for a while since that is one of Victoria’s top choices right now. It has a beautiful campus in the midst of DC. Plus, if she goes there and I go to UMD, we would be super close to one another! SoCal girls’ partayyyy.
I guess I like to get in my veggies at lunchtime. This is the veggie burger in a lettuce wrap from Elevation Burger at the AU dining hall. Very tasty! Especially since it took 10 minutes for them to make…
In the afternoon, Victoria and her mom went to an art museum in DC while my mom and I went back to relax at the hotel. I snacked and got some homework done.
After picking them up and having dinner at the hotel cafe (we ordered a bunch of apps to share), everyone except my mom walked through wind, rain, and suddenly freezing temperatures for one reason and one reason alone.
Cupcakes.
Baked and Wired Bakery
After our courageous trek. Hi from Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.
Our reward!
Carrot cake cupcake (they call them “cakecups”). It’s supposed to be “enough to share”…Haha. Nah.
DEMOLISHED that sucker.
It’s a cycle, really. Snacky breakfast➔ veggies at lunch➔ sugar at night. It balances out.
This “cakecup” got me all sugared up for a late night workout at the spiffy hotel fitness center. Moves included a 1 mile run on the treadmill, some bodyweight lunges, pushups, and Julie’s 8 minute ab tabata. It felt good to move! And groove to my music when no one was watching 😉
Unrelated side note: I officially despise— DESPISE—driving in DC. Half of the roads are one-way for only certain hours in the day, some roads are two-lane or one-lane for certain hours in the day, there are too many roundabouts, tour buses are everywhere, cars are parked in driving lanes….holy moly. DC makes NYC look like a breeze.
And that’s a wrap! I apologize for the length of this post, but it was another two-days-in-one-post deal.
Hope you all have a happy hump day!
So tell me:
Have you ever been to Washington DC?
Do you like veggie burgers?
What is your favorite cake/cupcake flavor?
Where is the worst place in which you’ve driven?
Daily Moves and Grooves 
I think it’s good that you knew pretty quickly which school you liked better. That’ll make the decision much easier! UVA does have a pretty campus but I’m sure UMD does too!!
It definitely required lots of thought, but I am glad that I was able to narrow it down pretty quickly. There’s only one more college that could change my mind now! 😉
We have a Miss Saigon here- and the food is sooo good- broken rice and grilled chicken!
Even though the Uni of V was a downer, at least you scored some good eats. 😉
Mmm I love Vietnamese cuisine.
True true. I ♥ food.
I always get kind of envious whenever I read about people travelling to look at different college campuses because my top university was the one in my hometown, so I never really went to look at any others — I totally feel like I missed out on the whole college experience! I do feel like Canadians don’t tend to leave for school as much as Americans do, though… It’s an interesting thing. And now I want cupcakes — chocolate ones
I have tons of family and friends in Canada, and I’ve noticed that they do like to stay close to home for the most part. Your advantage is that you don’t have to choose between a million and one colleges come decision time! 😉
Of course you want chocolate cupcakes….I still like my carrot cake more! 😀
I had the total opposite experience! Myself and all of my friends left home for school! But maybe it’s an Ontario thing??? Who knows! Canadians are weird.
I think you should scrap all of these schools and go to the Uni of Toronto instead 🙂
Oh you Canadians…You’re weird but I love you 🙂 I have a friend who lives in Calgary who’s going to McGill, so that’s pretty far.
If I went to UT, my relatives would mob me. I’d go to your house for protection.
I would be a in.heaven in Baked & Wired. And trekking through testing weather must have made it all the more “sweeter”!! A cupcake with a chocolate element goes down well with me..and heyyy, cupcakes no matter how large ain’t meant for sharing 😉 . That’s what regular giant cakes are for!
Its great that you’re feeling the tug towards UMD, instead of being completely undecided. And dang!..that’s a lotta walking.
It was definitely worth the cold, hard journey. 😉 And if I’m gonna go through that weather, I ain’t sharing!
Nah just kidding, we all had little bites of each others’s cupcakes, but I ate most of mine for sure.
I LOVE DC! I went for Obamas 1st inauguration (geese, so long ago) and I loved the atmosphere. There were pockets of the city that were kinda unappealing, but for the most part I liked it (minus the blistering cold weather!) I actually haven’t had many veggie burgers in my day (3 to be exact) so I can’t really say. I love them but I feel like they need a huge side dish to hold me over.
I could kinda tell you weren’t feeling UVA before even getting to your pros/cons. It looks like a nice campus, but it didn’t “grab” me, visually. If you know what I mean? I look for a particular atmosphere in campuses and this one seems sorta “blah.” Maybe is the gloomy weather? Who knows. But I like your decision about leaning more towards UMD! ❤
So cool that you were at Obama’s 1st inauguration! I could see you and him being best buds 😉 Yeah that veggie burger didn’t hold me over for too long…
I know what you mean when you say UVA’s campus wasn’t quite as “grabbing” as UMD’s campus. In person, it really is gorgeous, but the energy does not compare to that of UMD.
Worst place to drive-New Jersey!!!
And that cupcake looks amazing! Carrot cake and chocoalte cupcakes are my favorite!
Love me some veggies burgers!
Aaaaand last but not least I’m happy that Maryland still looks like your first choice! I have a friend who goes there so if you go maybe we can finally meet up one of these days!! Well even if you don’t go there hopefully we can still meet up!
Have a great day Alison!!💗
Good thing we were just passing through NJ today, rather than actually driving along their streets!
Oh that’s so cool that your friend goes to UMD! Does he/she like it?
She loves it!!!! She says the community is really great and welcoming 🙂
A cappella?! OMG so cool!! Bummer that you weren’t drawn to UVA though!
I loved DC! I went last year with my class and we saw all the monuments and everything. As usual, all of the food looks so yummy!!! Food babies are worth it haha 🙂
Ahh yes the classic 8th grade DC trip— I had such a fun time when my class went!
Um, yeah. Cupcakes are not meant to be shared… unless you have a dozen and you’re already dead/on the floor in a hypoglycaemic coma from eating 10 of them at once.
DO I LIKE VEG BURGERS? I have answered this question on my most recent blog post!
I’m no cupcake snob and like to think I love ’em all equally. But I usually gravitate towards anything that incorporates peanut butter…or sprinkles… or cake… or frosting.
The worst place I’ve driven? Oh man… probably to Edmonton, Alberta. It’s where Spoons lives, btw. It’s just a boring, uneventful drive and once you get there, you’re disappointed.
I guess you could share them if that happens…Three cheers for peanut butter! And cake. and frosting.
Haaa the last time I was in Edmonton was when I was a nugget visiting that big mall…West Edmonton or something. I was only there for the wave pool.
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