For my passion blog, I decided that I would blog about exploring the area (State College) from the perspective of some who is from New Jersey and has never lived anywhere other than her hometown.

Personally, I love all things nature and the general idea of exploration. One of my first few nights here, my roommate and a few friends of ours decided to grab to-go boxes from the dining hall and go sit in the Arburitum for a little dinner picnic. Honestly, I did not know what the Arburitum was, where it was, or even that it existed prior to this experience, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised. Back at home, there is this beautiful botanical garden about a ten minute drive from my house, and it is humongous. I have gone there hundreds of times in my life, but everytime I go, I still find something new to see and do. I felt the same way during my visit to the Arburitum. We started with our picnic in the grassy fields before you hit the fountain, and then after we finished eating, we went to explore. Once we walked through those beautiful front gates behind the illuminated fountain, it was like every turn we made there was something brand new to explore. We found a fish pond, a flower garden, some beautiful architecture, and a wedding alcove. Although we did not finish our explorations of the Arburitum on this night, and I intend to go back very soon, it was honestly amazing seeing what nature-like experiences Penn State has to offer.

Following this, as of lately, I have been going on a lot of night explorations. Over the sum of the last week or two, I have been either staying up or staying out pretty late at night, which calls for a pretty messed up sleep schedule. However, what is the most fun thing to do when you can’t fall asleep at a reasonable time? EXPLORE! About two weeks ago, a group of my friends and I were invited to our friends apartment downtown, which happened to be about a thirty minute walk away from campus. We wandered around downtown with Google Maps open and learned a lot more about downtown and what there is to do in the area, solely by passing buildings and stores and seeing people on the streets. We learned that very night that nightlife in downtown State College is a lot more exciting than the downtown area appears to be during the daytime.

Along with the downtown adventures, my one friend who lives in my building and I have made it a bit of a habit to go on walks together at around two in the morning when we both can’t sleep. Most recently, our fixation has been on the parking garages in the area. Every time we go exploring campus at night, we end up at the top of a different parking garage to try to find the prettiest view of campus.

I am thoroughly impressed with myself and the amount of exploring I have been able to accomplish since moving in, on top of keeping up with academics and socialization. Although I have not left campus too much yet, I do look forward to planning outings to the surrounding areas of State College sometime in the near future, and will most definitely be blogging about that.