Providence in Providence

Just 18 hours earlier we shipped off our Cornell cohorts but this morning, at an hour where we all should have been in bed, 9 intrepid young souls¾along with their chaperone¾piled into the seriously overfilled van taking them to the Oakland Airport and onward to Providence, Rhode Island to spend several weeks at Brown University.

While the Cornellians, due to their 10 AM departure time, looked so wide awake in their group photo, the 4:10 AM departure of this group presented the kind of look we all might expect: sleepy, cold and desperately missing the comfort of their beds.

Even at that early hour it was amusing to see the face of the shuttle driver when he pulled up to El Cerrito High to see a large group of people with luggage strewn all over the sidewalk. He was told he was picking up 10 passengers but he clearly saw 20 or more on the sidewalk and fear set in. His shuttle was barely large enough for the 10 plus their luggage and if he had to haul even one more person it just wasn’t going to work. Once I assured him that the extra bodies were parents seeing off their youngins he breathed a sigh of relief.

Even as I write this I can imagine these poor young scholars finding a seat at their departure gate to scrunch into as they seek to catch just a few more zzz’s before they board their plane in a couple of hours.

Stay tuned to this blog to see how quickly we’ll see their first posting of this trip.