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I’m back or something

I came. Well, I left. I saw. I didn’t conquer, but that’s fine by me.

Anyway, I’m back from my aunt’s house near Gainesville. We left early Friday morning, and got there about five hours later. The first thing we did as we got into Gainesville was eat lunch at Burrito Brothers. You could tell we were in a college town on the weekend of a big game. First of all, there was no parking anywhere. Burrito Brothers’s old location was really small, and it’s nice that their new place has tables so you can eat, but they only have three parking spaces. Don’t even think of parking at another business, because every flat surface for blocks around is a tow-away zone. Besides that, the city was swarming with young-type persons.

After that, we went right to the University of Florida to do what we came to do: take a tour of the place. Parking there was a disaster also, but at least they had a parking garage. First we watched a video about how great UF is, and then someone talked about the application process and things like that. After that, a couple of guys — one a senior, the other a recent graduate — led our group on a walking tour of the campus. Who would have thought that there was a lot of walking involved? It’s a big campus, and so there were lots of things for the tour guides to explain: plazas, monuments, dormitories, offices, art installations, the building where Gatorade was invented, and so on. Consequently, I learned a lot. It all fits together, you see.

What I remember most is their talking about campus life. Here are some things I learned about that.

• There are different kinds of dorms, most of which are reserved for freshmen. The earlier you apply, the more of a choice you have!
• There’s free T3 Wi-Fi or something like that!
• There are “Free Speech Zones” where you can engage in open debate with fellow students. Why aren’t they everywhere? I don’t know!
• There are 750 clubs and such things on campus!
• There’s also a lot of businesses and things. It’s like a little town!
• Every day or week or something, the Hare Krishnas offer a free breakfast or lunch or something for a mandatory donation of $3!
• There’s free city bus service, so you might not even need to own a car at all!
• You can get ticketed for speeding on your bike.
• Um, that’s it.

Judging by those morsels of information and some more that I might have forgotten, my overall impression is that there’s a strong sense of community and that it may not even be that bad to go there as a young freshman plucked out of his home of 18 years. I’d have a lot of support, I mean. I wouldn’t need to find a cheap car or anything, and depending on what kind of dorm I go for, I could make a lot of friends. Yay for making friends!

The tour guides were very informative and funny. Between stops they would chat it up with some of the people in the group. Inevitably, I got singled out somewhere along the line.

“Hey man, what are you interested in studying?” he asked. I always feel uneasy when someone addresses me so casually because it’s not like I’m going to say “man” back to them.

“Oh… I don’t know,” I said after a moment.

“You’re undecided?”

“Yeah.”

“You know,” he said, “here at UF, you don’t have to declare a major until your junior year.”

“Oh, that’s good.” I’ve been under the impression that most colleges require you to declare your major at the end of your sophomore year, so I’d have at least a little extra time to pigeonhole the remainder of my formal education.

“We call them ‘exploratory students,’” he said matter-of-factly. (I hate that word, but it is useful.)

“That sounds much better.” (It’s like the PC version of “undecided.”)

“It isn’t,” he said, and walked along.

I didn’t fall in love with UF like some people seem to do when they go to certain colleges, but the place has potential to grow on me. For what it’s worth, I think it’s going to be my top pick, and having family in the area could be a nice perk. I’m going to apply to UF soon, maybe even tomorrow. Maybe it’s not the best place, but due to the family link and my familiarity with the area, it does stand out among the hundreds of other nameless, faceless colleges out there. It’s nice to have an idea of where you want to go to college, anyway.

After the tour, we met up with my aunt and had dinner at Satchel’s Pizza, a really quirky restaurant with a junk shop in the back (actually, the middle). The design was eclectic. The music was eclectic. Hell, even the plates were eclectic. Outside, they had an old Volkswagen Bus with a table in it. You could eat in there. Oh, and the food was good if not great. Would I go again? Yes I would.

The next day, after some idle browsing in cheap stores, we went to a country restaurant for breakfast. After that we went to Poe Springs Park to enjoy Poe Springs. Thanks to my aunt’s connections, we had a free pass, and thanks to her even better connections, we didn’t need to use it. (Seriously, everywhere we go, she runs into someone she knows.) I wasn’t sure if we had ever been to Poe Springs — there are a lot of springs in the area — but I remembered this one right when I saw it. When I was younger, I went there with goggles and stuck my head under the icy, clear spring water to get a spectacular underwater view. But seriously — that water is cold. I decided to spend most of my time kayaking instead of standing in the shallow parts.

As I was kayaking with my aunt, we came across a spring that she had never noticed before. It was easy to miss — it was just a small, faint burble coming up near the riverbank a short distance away. I spontaneously christened it “Poe Jr.” It was a beautiful thing, really. I felt like I was witnessing the birth of a life-giving fountain. Well, I guess I was. Give it a few thousand or million years to mature, and it may rival Poe. All great springs start as little cracks in the ground. Well, maybe some of them start with large, catastrophic events, but it sure sounded good, right?

After that, we went to Floyd’s Diner, the local hot spot in my aunt’s small Gainesville-area town. Upon getting home, I had to go right to sleep because I wake up around 8:00 like clockwork, in spite of my continuous efforts to the contrary. Sure enough, I woke up right around then this morning, and after eating breakfast, we went on our way, and arrived home late this afternoon after taking the so-called scenic route.

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