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At The U of I
Aug. 25th, 2013 11:26 amMy mom and I took a day off to visit the U of I in Champaign-Urbana, where I went as an undergrad. I always have a strange experience of remembering and not remembering things about the place. I targeted a place to park (by the Main Library), but was wondering how to get there because I remembered that most of the north-south streets in "Campus Town" were one-way. However, my map didn't show them as one-way. I was right, and the map was wrong. However, I found a place to park with no problems.
"Campus Town" (the commercial area of campus with shops and restaurants) has changed completely, but I'm not surprised. However, the main quad area with the Student Union at one end hasn't changed at all (also not surprised). My mom loved it. She kept on saying, "I love this place!" The renovation of Lincoln Hall (one of the older buildings) was very well done.
Classes at UIUC start on Monday, so the campus was full of students enjoying their last days of freedom until school starts. They ignored the old people -;)
We started to walk towards the dorm that I had lived in, but my mom's leg was bothering her, so we stopped. I wanted to walk up to a small set of commercial buildings at which I had remembered a restaurant that I had really liked. There was a restaurant there, and I wasn't sure if it was the same one. It wasn't open but we decided to come back for dinner. We did, and asked the waiter if the restaurant had been there when I was there. He said that the restaurant had been there for around 26 years, but I was there slightly longer ago, so I'm probably remembering the place before it. (The one I remember was more casual than this place.) The food was excellent.
We had planned to roam around Urbana a bit. By that point, however, I was running out of steam, and knew I had to navigate my way out of Champaign-Urbana and then drive back. So we left. I did find my way out of Champaign to the highway with a few wrong turns. We got home a little after 10 PM, so I'm glad that we didn't stay longer.
It was a great day. And I managed to drive around campus, which I was kind of dreading. The campus isn't very car-friendly.
"Campus Town" (the commercial area of campus with shops and restaurants) has changed completely, but I'm not surprised. However, the main quad area with the Student Union at one end hasn't changed at all (also not surprised). My mom loved it. She kept on saying, "I love this place!" The renovation of Lincoln Hall (one of the older buildings) was very well done.
Classes at UIUC start on Monday, so the campus was full of students enjoying their last days of freedom until school starts. They ignored the old people -;)
We started to walk towards the dorm that I had lived in, but my mom's leg was bothering her, so we stopped. I wanted to walk up to a small set of commercial buildings at which I had remembered a restaurant that I had really liked. There was a restaurant there, and I wasn't sure if it was the same one. It wasn't open but we decided to come back for dinner. We did, and asked the waiter if the restaurant had been there when I was there. He said that the restaurant had been there for around 26 years, but I was there slightly longer ago, so I'm probably remembering the place before it. (The one I remember was more casual than this place.) The food was excellent.
We had planned to roam around Urbana a bit. By that point, however, I was running out of steam, and knew I had to navigate my way out of Champaign-Urbana and then drive back. So we left. I did find my way out of Champaign to the highway with a few wrong turns. We got home a little after 10 PM, so I'm glad that we didn't stay longer.
It was a great day. And I managed to drive around campus, which I was kind of dreading. The campus isn't very car-friendly.
