Last weekend I took six other IBM interns on a small tour of New York State. We rented an environmentally unfriendly Ford Freestyle, loaded it up with our bags, and hit the highway at around 6:00 PM on Thursday. As many jokingly said, I had planned a week worth of activities and tried to show my friends everything I liked about New York State in one, short weekend. I expected that most wouldn’t be able to make it west after their internship, so I had to pack the days as full as possible. We were able to stay at my parent’s house, which kept the costs down, but kept time delays up.
So what did our entourage look like? In no particular order we have Mark (Netherlands), Maik and Stefan (Germany), Marta and Marina (Spain), Ashwin (India / Rochester), and me (Canada).
The plan was to drive to Buffalo and stay with my parents and use that a home base. The drive most mostly uneventful. Mark drove for the first two hours until we were in Pennsylvania and ate at a small truck stop diner. For some reason our Hertz-provided GPS decided that going through Pennsylvania was the fastest route. From there I drove the remaining five-plus hours to Buffalo. I was always going to drive the remaining two-hours-plus since I know it best, but extremely heavy rains put me behind the wheel early. We didn’t arrive in Buffalo until around 1:30 AM. Perfect time to introduce the international students (except Ashwin for obvious reasons) to Wegmans. What’s not to love about a 1:30 AM trip to Weggies, especially when you’ve spent the entire summer trying to stomach A&P?
Friday morning we attempted to take a wine tour of the Finger Lakes region. We only made it to two, and neither were very good. I can’t be too surprised though. When I started planning the trip, I made certain assumptions about when we would leave the house. Regardless of when we went to sleep (usually 2:30 AM), I woke around 7:30 to 8:00. When you have seven people trying to wake up, shower, get ready, and get moving in the morning (and people don’t use the concurrency inherent in having more than one bathroom) it takes a long time before you are able to leave the house. On the morning of our wine tour, we ate breakfast at Perkins, which was admittedly a bad idea for that day. We didn’t make it to the first winery until around 3:00, and most or closed by 5:30 or 6:00. If I had known we would only have time to two, I would have driven straight to Hosmer and Americana, two of the better wineries on Cayuga (from what I remember from the last time I did a wine tour four years ago). I can’t complain too much about this part of the trip, after our two wineries, I made a detour to Wagner winery and brewery to get a growler of their Oatmeal Stout, which looks like Texas tea and tastes like heaven.
After Wagner, we made it to Taughannock Falls, the tallest waterfall west of the Rockies, and around thirty feet taller than Niagara. It’s a nice park and a decent hike, but it’s not as impressive as the other waterfalls we saw on our trip. That didn’t matter much though; the hike was fun, and due to a slight misreading of the map was about twice as long as expected. Stinky and sweaty, we drove back to Buffalo to pick Stefan up at Buffalo Airport (he couldn’t take Friday off from work), grabbed a quick dinner and finally made it back to Wegmans.
Saturday was Niagara Falls, and a Wegmans supplied European breakfast acquired the previous night. (In total, I think we made three stops at Wegmans.) Apparently my country doesn’t like India, so Ashwin stayed in the US and took advantage of his unlimited Night and Weekends to catch-up with friends while I took the EUs into friendly, cleaner, and more photogenic territory, Niagara Falls Ontario. We didn’t go to the casino (I pointed it out), we didn’t go down Clinton Hills (I pointed it out and mentioned it’s mini-Vegas attractions), and we didn’t see any Canadian Ballet (a term none were–thankfully–familiar with). What we did do, is stop every five feet to take another photo. It’s easy to forget that one of the Seven Natural Wonders is in your backyard. We went on the Maid of the Mist (by the way, I’m well aware I look like a drowned rat) before having dinner at the Anchor Bar.
The Anchor Bar was, in a word, delicious, and enjoyed by all, including the salad-eating Spaniards. The wings were surprisingly mild though. Ashwin and I wanted hot, but were afraid for the others, so we got an assortment. Mild: 10, Medium: 25, Hot:25, and when the hot weren’t enough, we got a plate of Suicide. The Anchor Bar, in our opinion, has started cheating. The Suicide wings used a completely different sauce than the regular wings.
Sunday was our day to drive back, and try to do the things we missed on Friday. This didn’t work. We made it to Syracuse a little after 2:00 and went to Dinosaur BBQ for dinner. This was something Ashwin and I were craving, but we really should have gone to Alto Cinco since New York City (Upper West Side) has a Dinosaur. Now I’m craving a Super Vegan, but we still enjoyed the ribs.
Next I gave a tour of Syracuse University and met up with Adam who was just getting out of work. Apparently, I gave him the tour too, since in the four years he was on campus, he didn’t seem to learn anything about the university’s history.
–This photo needs a little Kill Bill Rza music.
It was actually good to see the campus. A lot has changed since I was there last. They’ve started building Newhouse III which is pretty cool looking, the much expanded CTS building, and the new Management building. I made everyone do the stomp at the dome which made me feel like a silly tour guide.
After Syracuse, Adam led us down to Ithaca Falls, and we made our way to Cornell University. I believe they were impressed with the gorges campus and PhD student friendly suspension bridges. Perhaps one of them will apply to be future a faculty member.
Finally, we made the drive back to Westchester county. Maik drove most of this last leg of the trip. Sitting shotgun was Stefan, and as the night got late they both slipped into speaking German and Maik found himself on the Autobahn, much to the displeasure of the girls sitting in the back where the acceleration (forward, backward, and lateral) is felt most.
In the end we drove a total of 1242 miles, and finally arrived at around 1:30 AM (or at least that’s when I got back to my apartment). The trip was a lot of fun, but extremely tiring, which is probably why it has taken me a week to write this.
