Back to the Bay

Goodbye, Philadelphia

This morning I woke up at nine (and this is after having finally gotten to bed at FIVE A.M.) I said goodbye to my roommates, who promised to keep in touch, and packed most of my things that I hadn't gotten around to (I mean... did a little bit of last minute packing). My suitcase was so full (and how is it possible that it was so much emptier coming here?) that my roommate and I both had to sit on it in order to zip it closed.

My cheesesteak

I turned in my keys outside the quad and met Mr. Hillyer and the rest of the cohort there. After many teary goodbyes to the friends we'd made, we took a shuttle to the airport. Since we had to leave the quad by eleven, but our plane wasn't until 5:30, we got to the airport six hours early and had a lot of time to kill. We found a restaurant near our gate and had brunch (brunner?) there. I had a Philly cheesesteak. We also played a round of Mr. Hillyer's game, Munchkins of Cthulhu,which killed a few hours and was really fun.

Airplane food--not as bad as it could be

Finally, we boarded the plane. After almost six hours of staring at clouds, we were finally home. We landed and came out the exact same gate we went in a month ago, and took a group photo there in our Penn sweatshirts. Then we met our parents at the baggage claim. After we'd said goodbye to each other and John (sniff sniff) we went home.

This last month was a unique experience for me, and I really enjoyed it. I'm glad to be back, but the last month in Philadelphia has changed me and the way I look at things.

Hard to say goodbye