A Very Hoya Homecoming

I have to be honest, I was not jumping up and down about Homecoming Weekend.  Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled at the prospect of seeing out-of-town friends who were making their yearly pilgrimage back to the city, but the stress of all of the people I wanted to see was weighing down on me.  Add to that a week that wasn't stellar and I was not particularly psyched for the weekend.

One of the things I was really excited for was spending Homecoming with Dan, seeing as how one of the things that I love about our relationship is that shared Georgetown connection.  However, the reality is that we each have our separate groups of friends, so, naturally, our priority was going to be hanging out with our respective friends.  So we kind of took a "well, I'll see you when I see you" attitude toward the weekend, which actually ended up working out nicely.

I went to bed at the grandmotherly hour of 9:15 on Friday night, feeling completely worn out.  True to form, I followed that early bedtime up with an early morning, waking up slightly before 7 to run.  Boy, I needed it.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is nothing like the automatic mood-boosting powers of a good run! I met up with Lauren and we headed over to the tailgate, which soon turned into a mob scene (so much so that Tim, not a fan of lines or huge groups of people, turned right back around and left before he even made it into the cordoned-off area).  One thing that you're guaranteed to find at Homecoming is a boatload of Hoya spirit, with blue and gray at every turn, and it really warms my heart.

I really did miss my out-of-town girls, more so this week than I maybe typically would, because Homecoming is not only the ideal time to make small talk with people you crossed paths with at some point during your college experience, but it's also a wonderful excuse to have a no-holds-barred fun weekend with your best friends.  It was hard not to have them there, and they were certainly on my mind all weekend.

Miraculously, I was able to find Dan and his friends in the crowd, and, after hanging out with them for a bit, we went back and found my friends before heading up to the swim meet that was on campus that day.  That was my first swim meet ever, and getting to experience something that was such a big part of Dan's life really meant a lot to me.  I can genuinely say that I had a great time!

My plan was to take a power nap so I would be ready for round 2, but, thanks to an obscene amount of traffic, the bus took much longer than expected.  I had a little bit of downtime to change, but then it was time to head back to Georgetown with a group of nearly 20 friends.  It was a really fun time, and I got to see some people who I would not normally get to catch up with otherwise.  From there, a group of us walked down to the waterfront and then to the Kennedy Center to check out the views from the rooftop terrace.  We then walked back to the waterfront, where our class had its class party.  I just have to say that, whoever planned the bar night did a God-awful job (did they forget about the flooding back in April that has rendered the inside of many of the restaurants inoperable?), because it felt like it was about 40 degrees, and damn, we were freezing after being out there for about 3 hours!!!  Dan met up with us there, and, soon after, a group of us headed back to nice, warm Chadwick's, where his class party was.  We headed back about 1:30, and, as we were walking home, we were enveloped in fog on Key Bridge.  About halfway across, we could no longer see Georgetown, and boy, was it eerie!

We had a perfectly lazy Sunday (complete with the most delicious French toast ever at one of our favorite breakfast venues), which was a nice counterbalance to the hectic two days that had passed before.  Although my mind was fighting me, I couldn't help, as I rode the bus home in the middle of the afternoon, but experience an overwhelming urge to run.  So run I did!  It won't be too long before it's too freezing to run outside, so I'm taking advantage while I can.  It gave me a lot of time to reflect on how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I do.  I do give thanks for them every day, but I felt particularly lucky in light of the weekend full of reunions that I had just had.  Thank you to all of you, whether you're reading or not, for enriching my life, and I truly do feel blessed!

True to form, a few pictures from the weekend :)

 Lovely ladies at the tailgate!

With one of my favorite fellow Hoyas!