Well, yesterday passed fairly uneventfully in terms of my birthday. Other than the five million facebook “Happy birthday!” messages and a small gift from my mom, we didn’t make much of a fuss about it. It didn’t event feel like my birthday; so much is going on that my head can barely stop spinning, much less recognize the fact that I’m seventeen. (Plus, it’s been a while since I thought of myself as sixteen, anyway.)
Anyway, as far as yesterday went, it was nice. We got up early in the morning, had breakfast on the run, and got to Washington & Lee University for a group information session. The guy who led that, Chris, was a character—tall and skinny with pinstripe black pants, a short-sleeved white button up, and a ruffled red bowtie; but if you’re thinking nerdy, he actually wasn’t. He was just… I don’t know, interesting. After Chris finished the information session, we toured the campus with Abbie. It was a pretty comical coincidence as both Abbie (“Abbie, not Abigail”) and I were in sweater-tops, floral skirts, and nice sandals. Although, other than Abbie and the moms, I was the only girl on the tour. It was maybe four guys and me, which in itself was kind of amusing, and might have been beneficial if I had thought any of them were cute.
Okay, I’m just going to come right out and say it: Washington & Lee is a quirky school. It’s like Mount Carmel for college kids, for one thing. Remember Sr. Camille Anne’s “High Five” speech? If you see someone in the hall and they’re less than five feet away, we say hi. Well, I got pretty much the same speech yesterday, much to my amusement. “If we make eye contact with each other, we smile and say hello.” Plus, it’s not much bigger than Mount Carmel and the professors and even the president of the school knows you. (If you’re a senior, apparently, the president has you over for dinner at least once during the year.) And you need to pass a swim test to graduate college. Oh my! I could go on and on, but that makes it sound like I didn’t like it—and I did. It’s a very pretty school with a great focus on education and a friendly, easygoing attitude.
After the tour, we took a carriage ride through Lexington. I always love carriage rides outside of New Orleans, because everywhere else but New Orleans uses horses instead of mules, and not to hate on mules or anything, but horses have so much more of a personality. Our driving horses were two black Morgan/Percheron crosses who were about sixteen and ready to settle into semi-retirement. In fact, I think we were their last ride as full-time drivers. Their names were Dick and Dan, and their human counterpart, the carriage driver, was named Angel. She had a smoker’s voice, lilted by a southern accent, and was absolutely nice, but had a little kick to her that made her completely at odds with her name. She was feisty and nice to her horses; I liked her.
The town, as we discovered even further from the tour, is absolutely charming. The houses have names, like in an Austen novel (like Mansfield Park ;p) or like something out of Wuthering Heights. And people knew the local pets by name. (Let me insert here that before the tour, we went to get coffee at a local little coffee shop and on the wall, there were rows of pegs where regular customers kept their coffee mugs.) Dick and Dan were pretty adorable, too. They were terribly confused when a delivery truck stood in their usual parking spot, and Dan never quite recovered, trodding along with a confused look on his face for the rest of his, and Dick the Chicken (who spooked at or at least curiously considered every little thing that crossed his path) was especially smart and had picked up a neat little trick. We had to stop at red lights every so often, and without fail, at every red light, Dick would start moving a half-second before the light turned green. As the green light on the other side of the intersection switched to red, the light makes a little clicking noise. Dick can apparently hear this click and has learned that it means its time to go. It never surprises me how smart these animals can be.
We were staying in Lexington last night and had nothing to do after the carriage ride, so we ended up eating lunch on the back patio of a little restaurant in a hill, doing some laundry at the local laundry mat (what an experience! I’ve never been to one in my life), did some shopping downtown, and then we hung around the pool, reading and soaking in the gorgeous scenery.
We left Lexington this morning, after a pretty nice breakfast on the front porch of our hotel, looking out past the brick archways onto the rolling green lawn. From there, it was only a two hour drive to Richmond, pretty miniscule compared to the twelve and five hour drives we’ve been used to. We got to Richmond at a little after eleven this morning and spent the afternoon exploring.
We ate lunch at Noodles, a little restaurant that sells (you guessed it!) noodles, and spent the afternoon shopping in Carytown and at Stony Point, both outdoor boutiques and brand-name stores on what they call the West End. Finally, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow, we’ll tour the University of Richmond.
Until then, good night!
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