Taylor Elicegui ’20
Features Editor
As a nostalgic 3L, I spent Fall Break soaking up the sights of Charlottesville. My personal favorite was a Fall Baby Goat Cuddle Session at Seven Corners Farm (an animal experience available through Air BnB). The farm is on Ivy Road, approximately a fifteen-minute drive from school. The goats are, amazingly, very much lap animals and I spent an hour getting to pet and play with many of the twelve or so goats in the barn. There are also two miniature pigs, although they are not as “lap-friendly” and very hard to catch. For anyone looking for a fun brain break or an activity to do with visitors, I would highly recommend! Maybe, if we’re lucky, Student Affairs can be the G.O.A.T. and bring the goats to school for a little pre-finals de-stress.
I spent the rest of break, in classic Charlottesville style, sampling many of the adult beverages around town. I went to some classics: Three Notch’d, Veritas, Carter Mountain, and Blue Mountain Brewery. I also checked out some new (or new to me) places, that I would highly recommend: Grace Estates, Blenheim Vineyards, and my current obsession, the Brewing Tree. The Brewing Tree has cornhole, hammocks, a fire pit, and axe-throwing on Saturdays. There’s a beautiful meadow, so you can take your drinks and snacks from their food truck down and enjoy next to a little creek. I could not think of a better way to enjoy my last Fall Break!
Will McDermott ’22
Staff Editor
I scanned my ticket, walked through the metal detector, and immediately felt the stadium rumble from the screaming “bleacher creatures” stationed above Gate 8. Playoff baseball at Yankee Stadium is legendary; fans travel across the country for an opportunity to watch their team advance one step further toward the World Series. I, however, didn’t have to do much extra traveling to watch Game Three of the American League Championship Series since I live about forty-five minutes from the Bronx, and the game conveniently took place over fall break (Tuesday, October 15, 2019).
Game Three was the first home game of the series. Even though it was a 4 p.m. Tuesday game, grown men and women were drunker and rowdier than the undergrad crowd funneling out of Virg at 1:55 a.m. on a Saturday. Before the end of the first inning, I saw NYPD eject a row of people. Surprisingly, though, the energy didn’t last very long. The Yanks were scoreless for seven innings and down four runs to the Astros. The electric New York crowd wasn’t there for long. At points, the crowd booed several of their own players and threw beer cans onto the field. The Yankees were not meeting their fans’ expectations—but on the other hand, the fans were not meeting the Yankees’ expectations. If you want an accurate representation of the fans after the third inning, check out Barstoolsports’s Instagram post from October 16 captioned “The only guy that showed up to try to beat the Astros last night.” The Yankees went on the lose the series four games to two. Who knows what difference it could’ve practically made, but for Game Three, the crowd that the Yankees needed did not attend.
Maria Luevano ’21
Staff Editor
Having visited New York City a handful of times before, I thought I had seen most of the major tourist spots. This trip taught me some important lessons about visiting the city that never sleeps though: there are always tourist things to do and the best way to see them is through an inside (i.e., free) connection. Luckily, it turned out my boyfriend has a friend with a flashy new job at NBC and an ID card that gave us access to basically anywhere in their 30 Rock studios. I was pretty impressed that we were able to freely explore the SNL, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon studios (although we did get yelled at for trying to take pictures). The studios were very quiet during the day and a lot smaller than I was expecting. In contrast, the news show offices were all very busy and many of them were filming as we walked around! Because our tour guide was pretty new to his job, we were all basically wandering around starstruck which made it even more surprising that no one stopped us to ask what we were doing there. It was a great way to get an inside look at the studios and see a different side to a big New York City attraction!
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