Something Every College Student Should Experience

I woke up in the bed of a Holiday Inn Express at 6:30am. The coolers were already fully packed from the night before (7 thirty packs for 8 people to be exact) and the ice machines on our floor were out of service after we were done with them. We had bought the tickets the day before and the cabs were picking us up at 7:15 right in the front of the hotel. The free breakfast was clutch as we waited for the cabs. Finally the cabs arrived and we were on our way to the Preakness. We got there at 730, which was a half hour before the gates opened, and there were already hundreds of people in front of us waiting. Now when I say people I don’t mean families or older people or little kids....I mean college students.

The Preakness attracts college students from all over the country. Basically it is the biggest party I have ever been too. I was sitting on my cooler having a drink by 8am with all my friends and with hundreds of people around us. By 11oclock there were over 25thousand college students doing the same thing. By 2oclock there were 50 thousand people all with packed coolers and it was pure insanity.

It is a free for all held on the infield of the horse racing track in Maryland. My friends and I marked a territory with coolers and caution tape. Nobody even cared about the horse races going on around us because most of them were distracted by girls on guys shoulders lifting up there shirts to get some cheers....or the half full beer cans flying through the crowds...or the guys who thought they could run across 50 porter potties and make it all the way across while being pelted with cans ( you can watch a video of that on youtube.com...."Preakness 07" its absolutely hysterical) Preakness was a 12 hour event and before I knew it, it was over. I talked to so many people about it and we are all going in 2008!!

Do it....guaranteed an amazing time

Peace from the pent house suite

Live it up

Sophomore year of college began for me, and it couldn't have come soon enough. I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy my summer, but working 40 hours a week, in an elementary school, with no AC, and children under 10 screaming all day...isn't my ideal summer. I pretty much had two summers...before work started, and while work was going on. Since I started working towards the end of June, I knew I had to live it up before than.

I started off my summer with a bang. My first night back I was only home for an hour then it was off to the Met game with all my friends. I was going to a Met game pretty much every home game that they had. It was amazing how cheap the tickets are during the week, and since I live on Long Island, I can just jump on the LIRR, and after one transfer I would find myself right in front of Shea Stadium. Using my dad's monthly train pass saved me a $12 round trip ticket. (Since my friends and I didn't have to drive, we would have our own little tailgate on the train before the game to start it up) I think Mr. Met thought that my friends and I has season tickets...Met games were a regular thing for me in the summer. It was a great way for me to get back to hanging out with my friends from high school. Since nothing else was really going on during the week it was a way to still bond with people that I liked to hang out with. I went so much that I started to make friends at Shea Stadium. I ended up hanging out with a bunch of people that were from the Island that I met at the game.

Met games were only a small part of me living it up in my pre-work days of summer...don’t worry there will be more to come....

peace from the Pent House Suite