New Orleans
Greetings from somewhere between Atlanta, GA and Greenville, SC. Our blogging has gotten progressively slower as the trip has progressed, so I’ll be updating you on New Orleans, where we stopped last Wednesday, July 22.
(We know we’re slow on blogging, but we’re staying busy with other pursuits. Instead of blogging, we’ve been learning GRE words such as “prevaricate” and “perendinate.” Free purple expedition hat to the first person that can define this word without looking it up. No cheating–honor code still applies to alums!)
Win me!
When Ko flew into Little Rock on the 21st, she was greeted with Jason and Emily’s smiling faces waiting for her at the baggage claim. When I flew into New Orleans the next day, I called the crew and was informed that no, they were not at the airport–they were busy eating gooey, fried, powdered sugar-covered beignets at Cafe du Monde–and that I was free to find my own way downtown.
After schlepping my way downtown, I was greeted by 3 sweaty, tired, sugar-filled Expedition members and a very messy van. We headed over to the home of Anamaria Villamarin-Lupin ‘95 and Tim Lupin ‘93, who hosted the New Orleans Send-Off party. Anamaria and Tim first met at a party at Susie Hopkins, but they didn’t admit to each other that they were interested until later. Tim used to have long hair, and during a sweaty Williams concert in Lasell, he asked Anamaria if she wanted to borrow his hair tie to pull her hair back.* After that: love!
The event in New Orleans was unique in that we had such a wide range of people represented. Two groups drove over an hour to come see us: Mattie Mitchell ‘12 and her parents Valerie and Andy drove all the way from Mobile, Alabama, and Myron Minn-Thu-Aye ‘07 and his roommate Susan (Trinity University ‘07) drove from Baton Rouge. Since I wasn’t with the Expedition when they visited Myron (see previous post for details), I was especially excited to see him. Also, Myron proudly earned the title of the first non-expeditioner to attend more than one event!
From left to right: Annamaria Villamarin-Lupin '95, Ashley Brown '07, Tim Lupin '93, Holly Takashima '05, Marissa Black '05, Susan (Trinity '07), Nancy Worley '13, moi, and Myron Minn-Thu-Aye '07.
Other young alums in attendance were Holly Takashima ‘05, who just moved to New Orleans a few weeks ago for a teaching job, and Marissa Black ‘05 who is in Medical School at Tulane. Ashley Brown ‘07 and Nick Antoniou ‘07 are both originally from New Orleans, and this was their second time at the Lupin house. At the event, Ashley announced that both she and Nick were at the Lupin’s 6 years ago for their own send-off party, and that being back again, this time to welcome first year students, was like coming full-circle in the Williams experience.
The two incoming first years that attended were Nancy Worley ‘13 and Alejandro Gimenez ‘13. Both are very excited about coming to Williams!
At the Lupin's suggestion, we took a free ferry ride across the Mississippi. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hosts, expeditioners and stragglers (we love you, Myron!) show off New Orleans' classy Alumni banner.
signing off,
jen
*We’ve been trying to encourage Jason to grow out his hair so he can use this move, but so far he’s unconvinced.
