The End

For all good things, the end must come. Such is the case for this vacation. Our last day truly sightseeing was Wednesday, where we drove to and visited Rhode Island for the day. Our first stop was Providence, the capital and location of Brown University. It was about an hour or so drive from Boston, which was something I liked about New England in general - everything you could want to go to is only a few hour drive away at most. One of the first things you see when you enter the city is its strange capital building, whose dome seems unpropotional to the rest of the building and is topped with (according to our guide book) by the Free Man or something symbolic like that. From our quick drive through the city, it seemed quite picturesque, much like the campus of Brown. When we arrived for the tour, we attempted to check in, but were informed at the desk that it wasn't necessary. As a result of this practice, there was a huge crowd of people waiting to take a tour (it may have had something to do with the fact that so many people were on Spring Break), and only four tour guides. The one that we picked was actually a freshman, which seemed kind of weird, but we thought that since she was majoring in engineering, she could be helpful in that area. But as a result of either her inexperience or the large group, she seemed to be a little flustered. I also couldn't hear a word she said for half the time. But as I said before, the campus was pretty... From there, we went to this information session, which while interesting, wasn't very informative. I also didn't really like a selling point they made - their academic flexibility. It seem a little to unstructured to me. On the good side, though, we did get some delicious almond croissant on campus that were made by this high end bakery in Providence :)
After leaving Brown in a hurry - because our meter had run out, and apparently we couldn't move - and forgetting to buy any t-shirts (thus ending my college t-shirt buying spree), we drove to Newport to visit the famous mansions there. The first one we went to was the Breakers, which was very impressive and opulent to the point of almost being gaudy. Once we got inside, we were given these audio tours that would describe each room in detail, and allowed us to move at our own pace. Even though I kept on pushing in the wrong numbers, I actually like this system, especially after our poor tour experience at Brown. After walking leisurely through the entire house (and listening to every single recording), I went around to the back of the "summer cottage", which was equally impressive, if covered with geese droppings. Naturally, I had to take a bunch of pictures of the outside (to compensate for the fact that you couldn't take pictures inside), and of course, the camera has to die on me! The audacity! This appalling action meant that we were in a pressing position - we hadn't even finished one tour, and we were one camera short. I guess that's life.
From there, we went to the other Vanderbilt mansion in Newport: Marble House. While smaller than the Breakers, it was just, if not more, fancy. The characters that lived in there - Alva and Consuelo (what kind of a name is that?)  Vanderbilt - were much more interesting. I think my mom only took us there because Alva supported women's rights and held suffragists rallies at the house (But still forced her daughter into a loveless marriage - irony, anyone?). Here, I found it interesting to see all the french influences. I guess it was supposed to be an American Versailles, and modelled after le Petit Trianon in Versailles, and you could tell it because there were pictures of Louis XIV and his mistresses or daughters or something all over. And apparently, their children's first language was French, which I found odd, seeing as no one in their family actually was french. Still, it was quite interesting to tour another example of the opulence and extravagance of the Gilded Era.
By this time it was 4:00 PM, which was the time we were supposed to go on a Servants tour at another house in Newport, the Elms. But since we were misled into believing there was another tour at 5 PM and we hadn't eaten lunch, we decided to go eat lunch/dinner at this restaurant recommended at the Breakers. The problem: no one could remember the name of the restaurant, only that it was a yellow building and on Thames Street. So, we wasted an entire thirty minutes of my life searching for the darn restaurant by looking at every yellow building in both directions on that road. We we finally found the restaurant, it was called Brick Alley Pub, and was just as good as the lady said it would be. I got a Ruben sandwich, which was quite tasty. In addition, I mooched off everyone else's dinner - including my brother's ginormous appetizer (?!?)/dinner of nachos. By that time, it was already past 5, so couldn't have gone on that tour of servant's quarters anyway. Instead, we drove around and look at the other fancy houses and creepily taking pictures of people's private homes (not me - my sister).The one thing I noticed was that all these houses were named. Why rich people feel the compuslion to to that, I'll never know. The last thing we did was walk a little on the cliff walk, and then we departed back to Boston.
The next day, yesterday, was when we drove all the way back to Michigan. Let me tell you, it was a long drive to be cooped up with your family. I didn't manage to finish my homework of reading a section of Jane Eyre, but other than that, I was pretty unproductive, as I have been all day today. Since we didn't get in until midnight, we didn't pick up Kingsley until this morning. As always, Kingsley was excited to see us, and jumped all over like you couldn't believe, making all of yesterday's sufferings (? I don't know if that is perhaps the right word) worth it. Now, all I have to do is finish a whole load of Spring Break length homework in two days! Wish me luck.