This Rose Cafe had an live action component to it. I am so amazed by the literal underground tunnel that connects Becker and Rose!! I remember touring Columbia and they mentioned that students have crazy parties in the tunnels that connect the buildings and everything is kept hush hush. I’m not sure if the West Campus tunnels are the ideal tunnels for parties though, especially because there is absolutely zero sound protection: Prof. Blalock’s kids, whose bedrooms are so conveniently located right above the tunnel, probably won’t be too thrilled to hear a college party when they are trying to sleep.

Definitely a very cool experience overall. I am amazed that Lyon hall has an elevator!! Unfortunately, you have to be a quill and dagger member to be able to use the elevator to go up the floors 🙁 unfair!! It should be Lyon hall members + Quill and Dagger be allowed to use the elevator. Anyways, the room inside Lyon hall is so beautiful. It’s this small room dedicated to Cornellians who died in WWI and it looks like it’s straight out of the Smithsonian. I really liked the super intricate designs of it all.

A really cool part of the trip, a very underrated part of it I would say, was going into the kitchen’s front of the house and peaking at the Rose dining hall from the restaurant staff perspective aka behind the buffet dishes. It was a whole new point of view and it was cool.

Something else that really shocked me is the fact that West Campus was sort of made and then in an effort to finish as fast as possible, the end of construction did not conform to all the architectural rules. Basically, the team took a lot of shortcuts hence the practically sound transparent tunnel walls, and multiple other things. I am kind of amazed how this was overlooked by the workers/overseers. I thought in America, where rules are pretty strictly enforced, these types of issues aren’t a thing. But I guess not!! In India, these types of shortcuts are always happening and people are always getting played. They can’t really do anything about it because there’s no one there to enforce the laws.