Virginia

In some parts of my area, saying "Virginia" refers not only to the state of Virginia but to THE University. Now with so many Virginia Tech, W&M, and JMU alumni around, they might argue against my alma mater claim to being the flagship state university but I think we Wahoos know the truth ;)

Prior to this visit, the last time I was in Charlottesville was for a dear friend's wedding back in 2007. Since Marco was still in Nigeria, I went solo and haven't been able to take him to visit my school since. Finally, we grabbed a cheap room on Priceline (note: don't use Priceline for Charlottesville, it doesn't let you narrow down the geographical areas) and headed down for an overnight.

As we drove down trusty old Route 29, we made a detour before heading to Grounds. Bel Air Market was the destination despite my husband's skepticism that a gas station makes the BEST sandwiches around. After one bite of his Farmington, I had him converted! I had my trusty favorite, the Birdwood, and wished that we were sticking around for a bit longer.


Eventually, we had to move on as we intended to head to Grounds and I drilled my husband in some of the particular UVA vocabulary (Grounds = campus, the Lawn = the quad, etc). We caught a historical starting in the Rotunda and found ourselves with a group of tourists from New Jersey. They had questions on EVERYTHING in Mr. Jefferson's University and some of those questions weren't so useful ("Is this the original picture frame for this painting" Mark: "Are you freaking kidding me?"). Standing in the old library after so many trips to Rome, I finally noticed for myself all the similarities to the Pantheon - including the big hole (filled in at UVA - see above). When we made it to the Academical Village (aka the Lawn), a dozen students or so were spending their Thursday afternoons sitting, reading, talking, or just playing frisbee. We followed up the tour with a walk around the Corner and some fro-yo at Arch's.

The trip down memory lane was a success when Marco finally admitted that he now understood why I was still so in love with Charlottesville. While fall at UVA is gorgeous, next time we'll be heading down for the Lighting of the Lawn.


Just for fun, here's one of my favorite "unofficial" UVA quotes:

"Just about every other school in Virginia likes to bash UVA kids for being 'pretentious' and 'snobs.' In other words, they get called out for thinking they're better than everyone else. Well, if you went to the school in Virginia with the most stringent admissions requirements, best overall athletic program, most beautiful campus and coeds, most successful and famous alumni, the most storied social scene, was founded by Thomas Jefferson, and all that happened to be in what was voted the #1 city to live in America, well you'd think you were the sh** too."
ESPN's review of college campuses