When it comes to campus cuisine, I feel like a freshman again. only better, because I'm a senior. Once more, I'm excited by all the surrounding eateries that I've yet to fully explore and exhaust - that, and three years later I'm still avoiding Commons. But it's not the new spots around 40th that have me so pumped; they're tasty, yes, but slow service (Hummus), tiny portions (Distrito) and eerie atmosphere (Cream & Sugar) leave them underwhelming. The source of my giddiness is so overdue it's embarrassing (but I'm too happy to care): in my last year at Penn, I have finally discovered the food cart.
Granted, these are not unexplored and unexhausted by most of you; in fact, if you're like a certain person I know, you have the Bui's number in your cell phone. Do keep in mind, however, that Leif Ericson set foot in North America over 400 years before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue. I'm not saying I'm like Columbus - I think I'm more suited to Jane Austen, minus her hermitic tendencies - nor am I asserting that this column will do for food cart fame what the arrival of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria did for the New World. But it isn't Viking Day that excuses us from class and work one Monday each October, so please pardon my delay in recognizing the potential of mobile vending.
What I am saying, though, is that since freshman year much of my approach to life at Penn has been similar to how you view a new pair of jeans: energized by the possibilities but really looking forward to when they're worn in and comfortable. And while I feel so lucky that I've begun this semester having achieved a perfect relaxed fit, I've found myself missing the feeling of the new and fresh. Sure, the future ahead is only the new and the fresh, but it is so much less scary to experience it at Penn. in the form of Magic Carpet or KoJa.
And that's just the beginning, of course. I'm ready and willing to experience all that is novel and unfamiliar (to me), whether in friends, food or fun. Because fellow seniors: what better time is there to begin than at the beginning of the end?
Here's to you,
Kerry
