Bloomington, Indiana
Jul 15th, 2006, 06:36 AM
#22
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Actually, there are two wineries, Brown County Winery which is very small and tucked in a side street downtown, and Chateau Thomas, first square on the right as you turn into town on the main drag- which has the feel of a CA winery- big tasting bar, gift shop, porch for sipping/hors d'oeuvres.They actually make some very good wines, surprising. Next door on the corner is a very nice and unique ladies' boutique.
Jul 23rd, 2006, 08:30 AM
#26
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Tomorrow we're kicking off our "college visit week" by going into the city and checking out Loyola. (5 schools on the agenda now!) So I'm trying to get things together today for Tuesday's trip to Bloomington. Anyone have any last minute suggestions before I print this to take along?
We tried to schedule a tour of IU but everything was booked for the three days we'll be there. Since we don't know when we'll have another chance to get there, we're going to go ahead with the trip and just do a self-tour. (Unless we're lucky enough to find a cancellation when we get there.) Does anyone have any recommendations for "must sees" on campus?
Thanks again for all the help so far!
We tried to schedule a tour of IU but everything was booked for the three days we'll be there. Since we don't know when we'll have another chance to get there, we're going to go ahead with the trip and just do a self-tour. (Unless we're lucky enough to find a cancellation when we get there.) Does anyone have any recommendations for "must sees" on campus?
Thanks again for all the help so far!
Jul 23rd, 2006, 12:01 PM
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Hey CAPH, I was kind of joking, that's where my dorm was at IU and it was a shock even then, lol. Seriously, it's a beautiful campus and a great school especially now that Bobby Knight is gone. Is your son interested in music or TV? Check out the communications and TV department- awesome. So is the music/theatre department. I ended up graduating from Uof L, but my time at IU was great.
Jul 23rd, 2006, 12:10 PM
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To the OP, if the tours are booked at IU, I suggest you go "hang out" outside the admissions building (where I'm presuming the tour begins) at the time of a tour and then "join" the tour by tagging along. You might keep your distance a bit, but you can get close enough to "eavesdrop". If the tour guide seems friendly, just join the group. I was a tour guide at my college. While there were "limited spaces", I always welcomed those "stragglers" into the group.
Jul 23rd, 2006, 12:21 PM
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Thank you very much, padams421! That sounds like very good advice! I have to say I was quite surprised that we couldn't make a reservation. The same evening, my son e-mailed for a Saturday tour at UW-Madison and got in without any problem. There's only one tour a day and you'd think Saturday would be more of a problem than Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
However, as I mentioned in my OP, we had a little trouble getting a motel room too. So perhaps whatever caused that problem is also filling the tours! Obviously, we should have planned this farther ahead but it wasn't until the week before last that my husband realized he could take the week off. So we had to jump while we had the chance!
As I mentioned, we're going to check for cancellations. But I wonder how many people bother to cancel? By taking your advice, we should be able to actually take advantage of any absences.
Thanks again.
However, as I mentioned in my OP, we had a little trouble getting a motel room too. So perhaps whatever caused that problem is also filling the tours! Obviously, we should have planned this farther ahead but it wasn't until the week before last that my husband realized he could take the week off. So we had to jump while we had the chance!
As I mentioned, we're going to check for cancellations. But I wonder how many people bother to cancel? By taking your advice, we should be able to actually take advantage of any absences.
Thanks again.
Jul 27th, 2006, 07:22 PM
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We just got back this afternoon. And tomorrow morning we leave again to check out Marquette and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. I'm trying to do a little laundry, unpack and re-pack. And I'm exhausted! So forgive me if I don't do the greatest job on this!
But, first of all, I wanted to once again thank all of you for your help. And, before the trip to Wisconsin starts to confuse the issues from the trip to Indiana
, I wanted to do a brief summary.
SandyBrit, unfortunately, Country Hearth Inn and Suites definitely is one of the awful ones! As nearly as we could figure out, it must have been built as a Ramada back in the 60's. And that would probably be okay had it been kept up! Describing this place as shabby is putting it very politely!
The thing is, I learned about the place from the official Bloomington web site. And the web site for the chain looked very nice. I really thought it was going to be one of those newer suite chains. What a disappointment!
We got there too late to cancel Tuesday. But, first thing yesterday morning, we told them we wouldn't be staying the second night. At the time, we had no idea what we were going to do instead! But we wound up staying at the lodge in Brown County State Park. It was very nice!
We ate at Mother Bear's Tuesday night and loved their pizza! We had two of the specialty ones; one with bbq sauce, the other with their white garlic sauce. They were both excellent. And we had their thai chicken wings which were also very good.
Wednesday for lunch we ate at Snow Lion, a Tibetan restaurant. We really enjoyed it as well. The food was very good (we especially liked their salad dressing!) and the atmosphere was great.
Wednesday evening we were beat and decided to just eat at the lodge rather than going in to Nashville. That was probably a mistake. Neither the food nor the service were stellar.
We'd planned to eat breakfast in Nashville this morning. But we apparently turned the wrong way coming out of the park and missed the town! I was very disappointed not to get to see it. But, considering that we had to get back here in time for our daughter to go to work and our son to go to a concert for which he'd ordered tickets well before we planned this trip, it was probably just as well. We really only had about an hour to spend and I suspect it would have been hard to tear ourselves away from the shops after breakfast!
Now to the main purpose for our trip...Even knowing about the limestone buildings and hearing everyone say how pretty the campus is, I was still blown away by it. It's gorgeous! Our daughter goes to one of the schools in the five college consortium with Mount Holyoke. That campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and I really thought it was the prettiest campus I'd ever see. But IU is definitely prettier!
And we were impressed with the town as well. Although we suspect that both look a lot different when all 36,000 grad and undergrad students are there!
When we went to the Admissions Office Wednesday morning, the receptionist told us that she could add us to the tour. There were already 89 people signed up! She also told us she'd put us down for an information session two hours before the tour.
That info session was great! The speaker was excellent and covered everything we felt we needed to know. We'd walked around the campus quite a bit Tuesday evening and again Wednesday morning. So, after the session, we decided that we really didn't feel we needed the tour.
All the way around, I was quite impressed with IU. But I don't think our son was quite as impressed as I was! He's still definitely planning to apply though.
But, first of all, I wanted to once again thank all of you for your help. And, before the trip to Wisconsin starts to confuse the issues from the trip to Indiana
, I wanted to do a brief summary.SandyBrit, unfortunately, Country Hearth Inn and Suites definitely is one of the awful ones! As nearly as we could figure out, it must have been built as a Ramada back in the 60's. And that would probably be okay had it been kept up! Describing this place as shabby is putting it very politely!
The thing is, I learned about the place from the official Bloomington web site. And the web site for the chain looked very nice. I really thought it was going to be one of those newer suite chains. What a disappointment!
We got there too late to cancel Tuesday. But, first thing yesterday morning, we told them we wouldn't be staying the second night. At the time, we had no idea what we were going to do instead! But we wound up staying at the lodge in Brown County State Park. It was very nice!
We ate at Mother Bear's Tuesday night and loved their pizza! We had two of the specialty ones; one with bbq sauce, the other with their white garlic sauce. They were both excellent. And we had their thai chicken wings which were also very good.
Wednesday for lunch we ate at Snow Lion, a Tibetan restaurant. We really enjoyed it as well. The food was very good (we especially liked their salad dressing!) and the atmosphere was great.
Wednesday evening we were beat and decided to just eat at the lodge rather than going in to Nashville. That was probably a mistake. Neither the food nor the service were stellar.
We'd planned to eat breakfast in Nashville this morning. But we apparently turned the wrong way coming out of the park and missed the town! I was very disappointed not to get to see it. But, considering that we had to get back here in time for our daughter to go to work and our son to go to a concert for which he'd ordered tickets well before we planned this trip, it was probably just as well. We really only had about an hour to spend and I suspect it would have been hard to tear ourselves away from the shops after breakfast!
Now to the main purpose for our trip...Even knowing about the limestone buildings and hearing everyone say how pretty the campus is, I was still blown away by it. It's gorgeous! Our daughter goes to one of the schools in the five college consortium with Mount Holyoke. That campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and I really thought it was the prettiest campus I'd ever see. But IU is definitely prettier!
And we were impressed with the town as well. Although we suspect that both look a lot different when all 36,000 grad and undergrad students are there!
When we went to the Admissions Office Wednesday morning, the receptionist told us that she could add us to the tour. There were already 89 people signed up! She also told us she'd put us down for an information session two hours before the tour.
That info session was great! The speaker was excellent and covered everything we felt we needed to know. We'd walked around the campus quite a bit Tuesday evening and again Wednesday morning. So, after the session, we decided that we really didn't feel we needed the tour.
All the way around, I was quite impressed with IU. But I don't think our son was quite as impressed as I was! He's still definitely planning to apply though.
Jul 28th, 2006, 01:50 AM
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CAPH52 - Sorry to hear that Country Hearth Inn & Suites is one of the 'awful' ones. Due to the supply and demand they seem to get away with offering such shabby lodgings. Glad to hear you were able to work something out different for your second night.
Agree that I.U. is beautiful and a first rate college. What school is your son applying to?
Sandy
Agree that I.U. is beautiful and a first rate college. What school is your son applying to?
Sandy
