Blue & White Weekend at Penn State

Time was going by and the well known "Blue & White Weekend" at Penn State University was approaching. Already recommend by many other former inters and even from my boss and co-workers, this was another event on my "wanna-see-and-have-to-do-list". The Blue-White Game is one of the nation's most popular spring football contests.

It is called "Blue & White Weekend because the 2 football teams which are playing are wearing blue and white jerseys, the colors of the university. Present students, as well as young graduates and older graduates with their families have a big get-together at the Beaver Stadium at University Park, PA.

Many people arrive at Penn State on Friday evening. The game normaly takes place on Saturday afternoon. They talk about 100,000 people coming for that weekend to watch the game. Those who stay the entire weekend bring camping material, BBQ grills and outdoor games to hang around and spend time before and after the game. This is called "tailgating".

Klick below to get an idea about tailgating at Penn State:

Tailgating at the Blue & White Weekend at Penn State University

12 interns rented 2 RV's and left also Friday after work. For my part, I decided not to join them for the entire weekend. But I was still too curious to stay at home. Together with 3 other interns, I left early on Saturday morning. I was happy that Benny was driving. It took us 3,5 hours to get there. The closer we got to Penn State, the narrower the streets became and the more traffic we hit.
Once we arrived we saw a huge area full with cars and thousands of people in their PSU shirts and jumpers.

With such a crowd, it took us a while to find our people with their RV's. One hour and many hours later, we found them and all together we went towards the stadium to see the game.
I have to admit that I don't really understand the football rules and the game was not that exciting to watch. But still it was interesting to see what happens at such a game and to experience the atmosphere.

After the game we went back to the RV's. Some started playing beer pong with the neighboors, others decided to check out the action in the city. In the city, the bars and clubs were buzzing and overcrowded. At 5 in the afternoon....Nothing more to say.

We spent the rest of the evening with the other guys at Penn State. As we still had to drive back home that night, we left shortly after midnight. I was so grateful that I didn't have to drive and could lean back, napping on our way home.

To see more pics, check out my digital photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album50

Weekends in Chestertown, Annapolis and Washington, D.C.

After such a weekend at the beach, I was longing for a more quiet weekend. On Friday afternoon, I drove to Chestertown, Maryland where I met with Ryan at his mom's place. After sleeping in on Saturday, we grabbed a coffee and made our way to Annapolis, Maryland. The capital city of Maryland is located at the Chesapeake Bay, south of Baltimore and about 29 miles (47 km) east of Washington, D.C.

It was a beautiful sunny day to walk around the city and with all the restaurants offering outside seating, it reminded me to a city in Belgium or in the Netherlands. Situated at the shore, this is a great spot to have fish or any other kind of seafood.

This was the first time of my life that I tasted oysters. For 28 years I managed to refuse these greasy things but Ryan just ordered them. Lucky enough, he ordered oyster shots and a baker's dozen with crackers. I have to admit, even though that it was a personal challenge for me,to swallow, I liked it.

One of Ryan's best friends was in town as well, so we meet with him and his wife. After a sushi dinner, we left the town and returned to Chestertown.

My destination for the following weekend was Washington. Ryan got some tickets for a icehockey game of the Washington Capitals.

The "Caps" were playing in the play-offs against the Montréal Canadiens. After the Flyers game in Philly, this was my second icehockey game and I have to admit that the atmosphere in the Verizon Center in Washington was much better than in the Wachovia Center in Philly. All the Caps fans were dressed in their red jerseys which was a great view.
We saw an extreme thrilling game and were rewarded with the victory with 6:5 after overtime. It was so much fun!

Easter weekend in Rehoboth Beach

For those who have read my article about Rehoboth beach back in October, they might ask: ‘hey, wait a second, is she going there again???’

Yes, we did! And this time we didn’t have rain at all in opposite to the trip in October when we had horrible weather conditions with rain, wind and even ice rain.

When I was only a participant at the October trip, I had a different role this time. The October weekend was organized by a former intern who could not plan the weekend anymore. As we had such a great time there and we really wanted that all the new interns who arrived in February and March could experience the same fun and atmosphere, Mona and I decided to take over the organizational part. This did not only include planning for 30 people, writing and communicating with them and planning for them as well as equipping the house but the main work was negotiating with the landlord. He was very polite and a nice person to work with that everything went great…Anyway, this part went very smooth and the weekend was ahead of us.

Tim, Mona’s hubby picked me up at work around 2pm as we needed to be the first to arrive at the house to meet the caretaker and get a tour around the house to know everything about it. One after the other intern appeared throughout the early evening and we set up the table for peer pong and flip cup. So you can imagine that this was the start of a great party night with BBQ, Jacuzzi sessions, Play station and Wii games, a visit from the police because of the noise and dancing on the tables and chairs:-)

I had the same room as last time but I shared with Miriam and Jillian. The next day started late and very slow as we all needed to recover from the night. Some people went shopping, others made their way to the national park with wild horses and the rest just chilled out at the house or played Playstation or Wii.

Ryan just moved up from Louisiana the weekend before and promised me to come over as well. He arrived in the afternoon and we took a walk along the beach before we headed for dinner in town. When we came back, more and more people finished up their meals or their hamburgers and we all felt ready to start the Saturday night….This time, Tim was playing the DJ for us and kept us on the dance floor all night. It was great and the pictures tell more than I could tell.

On Sunday morning, the house was very quiet. A lot of people slept in or hung out on the huge roof top. It was a wonderful sunny morning and very warm for the first weekend of April. As this was the Easter weekend, all the interns with American boyfriends and girlfriends had to leave earlier to be at the Easter dinner with the families. The rest of us headed to beach and we were playing beach volleyball, strolling along the beach or just hanging out together. If I remember right, this was my first Easter weekend at the beach and it felt so good!!! In the early afternoon, it was time for the last BBQ and then we all started cleaning together as we had to leave the house around 5pm.

Even though it was a lot of work for Mona and me beforehand, it was a wonderful weekend and we enjoyed it very much. It felt even better when the other interns were thanking us for organizing it and giving us feedback that they all had fun and a great time.

But this weekend with all the interns in one house does not bring only a great time for everyone. It really helps to connect with each other and you can get in touch with interns that you never see or very randomly because they work in different buildings. Everyone has the chance make new contacts and get to know each other better. This is always a great event for the entire intern community and we hope that these weekends can continue.

See all the pix from the Easter weekend in my photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album45