Happy New Year!
Hiya, How has your break been? I’ve enjoyed spending time with my family and catching up with a few childhood/high school friends. Since it’s my last year at Caltech, I decided to fly back to Pasadena on New Year’s Eve to see the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day. I’ve never been to the Rose Bowl Parade before or see a live parade before outside of theme parks such as Disney, so I was glad to get a chance to see it this year. I was, however, a bit sad to leave Florida so soon, especially since my parents were really happy to see me back home. Anyways, I saw a ton of Michigan State fans at the airport and all of them were really excited to go to the Rose Bowl game against Stanford. My connection to LAX was through Minnesota out of all places, so I got to see some snow this winter! : ) There were so many issues with flights getting delayed and my own flight was overbooked, but thankfully I made it back to Tech safely in time for New Year’s. I checked out Colorado Blvd., just several blocks North of campus and we saw a ton of people camped out for the Rose Bowl parade. It was interesting seeing all the people waiting for midnight, along with bonfires, RVs, chairs, and air mattresses. A few friends and I celebrated at midnight with watching the ball drop again since I had missed it at 9:00 PST riding on the shuttle. I was pretty tired from the flight, so I ended up showering, unpacking, and heading to bed so that I could wake up early for the parade. The floats were really neat and elaborate. I really liked the floats that took a lot of engineering and mechanical skill to build. The parade lasted about two hours and then we went to get Korean tofu soup at A Ri Rang for lunch. Then, a few of us drove down to Irvine for Vivian and Peter’s wedding (Congrats you two!). The wedding was very sweet and the bride looked stunningly gorgeous and perfect in her dress. New Year’s Day was thus pretty eventful for me, but I had fun watching the parade and witnessing the wedding. I look forward to enjoying the rest of my break before classes start on Monday.
Happy New Year Jessica
