Fall break last year meant a lot to me; it was the first break of my college experience. Fall break is at an interesting time. The year feels like it has just begun and you’re still feeling your way through. As a first-year, you might be feeling homesick at this time. Maybe you live close enough to go back. And maybe you don’t and campus feels empty and you’re not sure what to do or where to go or who to hang out with. So it meant a lot to me when I found myself in Princeton visiting old (high school) friends and then found myself in New York City with new (college) friends.
You’d think that I wouldn’t have to worry about that now as a sophomore. I’ve had a year’s worth of experience, I’ve settled in, and I’ve found my people. Except that my people all went home for fall break and I was here on campus. Which I don’t really mind, but it just brought to light how much time I spend with them, and without them, sometimes I’m not sure what to do with my time myself.
But I did have some mutual friends on campus. They’re friends of my close friends, so though I’ve hung out with all of them together, I haven’t hung out with them without my close friends also being there as our sort of “reason why we’re hanging out,” but I wanted to get to know my friend’s friends better because I wanted their joy to be my joy. I love making new friends, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
To avoid social awkwardness, it helps me to have something to do so that I don’t have to constantly fill the silence with conversation but can simply busy my hands, which is where my camera comes in handy, especially at a place as beautiful as Philly’s Magic Gardens.
I’ve been wanting to visit the Magic Gardens for the longest time, but the weather was never right or I was never free when it was. But over fall break, the weather was great and I was free and Rhea made a Facebook event for a trip to Magic Gardens, so I went!
It’s a creative’s playground. Everywhere you walk there’s something new to see, even if you walk the same path over and over. This whole place is art. And also a very fun place for photoshoots. Jackpot!
This meant for a lot of #candid posing 😉 and also ironic sorority girl poses (although I don’t even know if we do it ironically anymore??). Protip: there’s a lot going on in the background, so wear solid neutrals.
hehe butt.
The Fall Break Crew: (from left to right) Rhea, Sedi, Rachel, Rina, Romy, me, Arya, and (not pictured) Isabella and Noah! The Magic Gardens has a family-oriented program called PECO Family Jams every second Sunday of the month between noon and 4:00PM, and we happened to stumble upon it. Sitting amongst parents and their little elementary school children, we crafted our masks. It was free!
I’m quite proud of my mask, though you can’t see it all that well in the photo. Half of the mask is painted in a sort of yellow giraffe print, and the nose bridge is outlined with multi-coloured pom-poms.
We end the day in Chinatown because it’s by the SEPTA station anyway. After dinner at Penang (where I have pad Thai), we head to Teado for bubble tea and Jenga! I get almond bubble tea and green bubble tea (both for myself in case you were wondering), and we play a super intense game of Jenga for thirty minutes while waiting for the SEPTA.
On the SEPTA back, we try to hide from the ticketer by ducking our heads down and keeping quiet, but he walks up to us and says that he saw our feet 😛 Oh well, we tried. Always scheming.
How can you not be friends after a day of art, food, games, and scheming? The Fall Break Crew is no longer a cohort of friends of my friends, but simply of my friends. It’s been quite a few months since fall break, but fall break wasn’t the last of us. We’ve had many Thursday night viewings of How To Get Away with Murder, although that may very well be the last of us (Shonda getting our minds all twisted!).
I love travelling in the sense that I like being in new places, but the process of getting myself there is very stressful and gives me anxiety. I travelled for most if not all of my breaks last year, so this year I wanted to just stay in Philly. But even here in one place, there are always new people to meet, new places to see, more adventures to be had.
tl;dr– I visited Philly’s Magic Gardens over fall break with new friends. It’s an outdoor public artwork/museum constructed of “nontraditional materials such as folk art statues, found objects, bicycle wheels, colorful glass bottles, hand-made tiles, and thousands of glittering mirrors” (x).