Oh yeah, and I just finished finals, too.

So in one of my previous posts, I attended three accepted student receptions in the northeast. On the final full weekend (and Monday and Tuesday!) of April, I had the opportunity to attend two more in San Francisco, California, and Seattle, Washington.

I was super excited since I’ve never been to either city. I flew out of Daytona on Saturday night, connecting in Charlotte on American Airlines to get to San Francisco. It was around 9:30 PM Pacific time when I got in, which is 12:30 AM Eastern, so I was pretty tired! I went to the hotel, slept, and then the fun began the next day.

On weekends, the accepted student receptions usually happen around 11:30 AM local time. The first one was at a restaurant called Flights, and it had an actual aircraft, which was pretty cool.

The reception was fun, as all of them are. The format is the same- it’s usually a Women’s Ambassador and two admissions representatives, usually joined by a parent or two. We all introduce ourselves, admissions will give their presentation, and then the floor is opened for a question-and-answer panel for everyone. After all public questions are answered, some families stick around and ask one-on-one questions. For example, some of my most commonly asked questions are about clubs and organizations, things to do in Daytona Beach, and the general student life.

After the reception, we get to eat. Since the presentation was on a Sunday morning, we had the rest of the day to explore San Francisco. It was super awesome- we went to a lot of places, including the Golden Gate Bridge and an art park called the Umbrella Alley, perfect for taking photos with! We also saw the coastline and went to Pier 39, where there were a bunch of sea lions.

The sea lions were pretty interesting. Apparently, the number of them in the picture is small, and sometimes every single platform will be densely packed with sea lions. I’ve heard that when there are more of them, the smell gets worse. They are wild animals that eat raw fish, so it is to be expected that they’ll be a little smelly.

The next morning, we ended up going to Seattle on a United flight. The flight was about two hours long, which is a little longer than I expected. Before we left, I met a Women’s Ambassador and ERAU alumna named Claudia who now works for United Airlines, which was pretty awesome! She also created the WA Instagram account, which I am now the manager of.

Seattle was fun. We had less than 24 hours there, so we had to make the trip kind of quick. After landing at the SeaTac airport, we rushed downtown to see the Pike Place Market, which is pretty infamous- it’s the site of the first Starbucks coffee shop! It also has a shop that sells fish where the workers will literally throw (and catch!) the fish at each other.

After hitting the market, we ended up going to see the Space Needle (from the outside) and then up to a lookout spot in Kerry Park. It’s pretty interesting how things come around full circle- my parents went to college together in Seattle, and they’d been to Kerry Park several times.

In regards to Seattle, we were pretty lucky that it only sprinkled on us, as seen on the concrete in the above picture. After that, we ended up heading back to the hotel for a few hours before heading to the reception venue, which was the Museum of Flight right next to one of the Boeing facilities.

It was pretty cool to be there. There was a balcony attached to the second-floor room we were on, and I ended up going outside to look at some of the aircraft. There were several parked out there, including some that looked brand new, which was super cool to see.

The presentation went the same way it did in San Francisco, and as always, I stayed around to answer questions. Since this location wasn’t at a restaurant, it was catered, which meant we could take all of the remaining food home. I got a bag of cookies, and I still have a few of the cookies in my fridge since they were massive!

After that, our flight the next morning left Seattle at 5 AM, so we had to be up and at the airport pretty early. I wasn’t complaining too much, since I planned to sleep on the flight, and I did for a bit. I also ended up doing some homework on the way back to Daytona, since it was the days before finals week.

Finals week, for me, is now over. I had two finals on Saturday and two on Monday, and two of my classes don’t require me to take the final. So now that that’s done, I’m slowly moving my way out of ERAU and looking toward the summer, where I have an internship with Sierra Nevada Corporation in Englewood, Colorado.

I am very excited about the internship, but I’ll definitely miss the warm Daytona weather. After the internship, I’ll be coming back to Daytona as part of the Orientation Team. Maybe I’ll see you in the fall… and if not, I’ll see you in the next post!