YALE!

In August 2005, Alpaca and I went with Pookie to New Haven (http://www.law.yale.edu/) to move her into her apartment for the next three years. We rented a huge Econoline van (Traveling Alpaca laughed his butt off at the sight) and headed off to order her bed, furniture and to pick up home goods and other needs from Bed Bath & Beyond, Urban Outfitters, IKEA, Target, Costco, Trader Joe's and about a hundred other places. We did so darned much that we collapsed from exhaustion every night.

The Campus tour was very interesting - we saw the Maya Lin-designed Women's Fountain and learned about notable alumni, the famed rare books collection and the history of the school (including a very fascinating background about the architecture and how an early 1900s addition was built to match). We also went to the Yale University Art Gallery and the Louis Kahn-designed Yale Center for British Art (http://artgallery.yale.edu/pages/info/support_members.html), which we found to be very impressive for a single-university collection. Of course, I'd expect nothing less of Yale.

And the Sterling Law Buildings. Oh, the Sterling Law Buildings.

Yale has great food if you're not looking for Chinese food. We know - Alpaca found out the hard way. Great pizza (http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/frosh/2000/blue/p51pizza.html) and Italian (http://www.consiglios.com/, where we had very good fried calamari, good lobster ravioli with shrimp and a surprisingly light eggplant parmigiana), decent sushi at Miso (http://www.misorestaurant.com/, where we shared a spicy tuna roll, a bulldog roll (go Yale!), a California roll and shrimp and vegetable tempura, with a side of entertainment courtesy of the boys sitting at the table next to us debating what were among the wonders of the world), great gourmet stores, including my personal favorite Gourmet Heaven, where you can purchase varied items based upon weight, including terrific cut fruit, entrees and you can also order a delicious (and huge!) crab cake panini (http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=702) and good cart food, including some of the best burritos you'll find.