Well, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got out to get some pictures of the campus today. I apologize for the flakiness, but it’s been a busy couple of weeks, lots of early September just got to campus let’s have a party kind of things, as well as just trying to get settled in to classes and things like that. A bunch of us internationals went out to Collegetown and Cornell for a bit last night, and they do this cool thing with chimes I thought you might like, so I tried to record it.

The quality’s not great, but it gives you an idea. They started off with the Imperial March from Star Wars. I’ve got something new for my resume now too: I have peed in an Ivy League bathroom. Anyway, the pictures.

This is the main quad, fairly well centered on campus. See the clock? I’m pretty sure we have that exact same clock at UPEI. Small world.

On the left here you can see a bit of the fountain, which lights up at night – very cool, there’s a video further down. I’ve never had occasion to go inside the far building, so I’m not sure what it is, but it looks pretty good. In the building on the left, which is some sort of film or theatre arts building, there’s this, which I thought was neat:

It was hard to capture them in a picture, but there were more movie posters all over the walls. Through the doors is a theatre. Back outside, and looking up the hill rather than down:

Pretty close to this is some art of some kind.

I’m not sure exactly what they call this thing. I’ve heard it referred to as the Textor Ball, a reference to Textor Hall, which it sits on top of, and also as “The Fish”. Yes, fish – look again. Behind Textor Hall, there’s the Park Center:

It’s one of the college’s three LEED Platinum certified buildings, whatever that means. It’s very eco-friendly and sustainable and so on. That’s one of our claims to fame – no other college has three such buildings. We also have more buildings called the Park Center than any other college, with two. They are not related in any way or even very close to each other, which is fun for people that are new on campus. Down the hill is the Muller Chapel.

This is where they send us to relax so we don’t go insane around finals. It usually works; we do better than Cornell, anyway. Here’s another shiny new LEED Platinum building, the Athletic Center, which is having its grand opening in a few weeks.

I don’t know if the picture really captures the scale of this thing, but wow. Americans love sports. Going back up to the top of the hill, we have the Towers:

These are residences, one of which is set aside entirely for freshmen. I haven’t met anyone yet who thinks that’s a good idea, and everyone seems to be at a loss to explain how it happened. There’s a lounge up at the top of East Tower, but it was closed when I was taking these pictures. I’ll go up there some time to get some views of the city and the lake. In the meantime, here’s the fountain at night.