Indiana Trip....Purdue and Notre Dame

This weekend Matt and I drove up to Indiana to celebrate his birthday with the Purdue/Notre Dame football tickets I got him on his birthday back in August. Matt got his Masters at Purdue (way back when) and when he was there, he never drove up to South Bend to see a football game at Notre Dame. It was something that he wanted and would like to do, so I surprised him with tickets back in August and this weekend we made the trip. I had never been to Indiana before so it was exciting to me to experience the state and see both campuses. Indiana is a beautiful state full of agriculture, but different than the flatlands of Southeast Missouri that I'm used to. It literally felt like we were driving into the movie "Hoosiers" with all of the pretty rolling hills of corn and soybeans with the farmhouses and old barns. It was so picturesque! The weather was great too. We had some cooler temps as we drove further north and the north wind was pretty chilly. We went to West Lafayette Friday and Friday night where Matt showed me Purdue's campus, where he did his graduate assistantship, and where he lived for two years. I learned all about the Boilermakers and some of their famous alumni....Neal Armstrong, Orville Reddenbacher (sp?) just to name a few :) The campus was very pretty and it was a buzz with college students (who I might add looked like babies to me.....does this make me feel old???). There is something about a college campus though that just gets my academic juices flowing and makes me want to still be in school. I guess I'm just a lifelong learner and I love school...or I'm just a huge nerd that loves academia...either way I better not get any more ideas in my head about school!!! ha

Saturday morning we got up early and headed up towards South Bend. South Bend is about 1.5 hrs north of West Lafayette so we didn't have too far of a drive. The drive between the two towns is gorgeous. It looked like scenery from a postcard...very very pretty. We arrived on campus around 11:30, and let me tell you.......it was a ZOO!!!! I have been on a few big college campuses and I have never in my life seen anything to the extent of what it was on Notre Dame's campus. The size of the crowd that was there was CRAZY!!!! I've been on the University of Arkansas and Mizzou's campuses on football game days. Notre Dame's crowd makes both of them look small and insignificant almost. It was so CRAZY with people, campus activities, and just the buzz about football. My cousin, Brent, is a Notre Dame grad and attended there when he got his MBA. He had given us a list of things that he recommended we do while we were there and we went down the list and got busy sightseeing. We saw the main Administration Building with the beautiful frescos (sp?) on the ceiling of the gold dome. We went into the gorgeous Basillica, saw the Grotto, visited the trophy and Monogram room at the Joyce Center, visited the extremely large bookstore, got our picture taken with touchdown Jesus, and of course saw all of the stadium. We saw the little Irish marching guys, the bagpipe band, etc. It was a full packed day and we were almost pooped by the time the game started! As we were waiting for the band to march into the stadium, two SUVs pulled up into the street and we heard that it was Taylor Swift going into the stadium (her bro is a freshmen at ND). Well we didn't get to see her (not that we're big fans or anything) even though she was like 10 feet away from us. (MORE ON THIS IN A SECOND)....

The game was very exciting even though Purdue didn't play very well. We had a pretty good view even though we were very high up. The atmosphere is just so unique there and it's very much like nothing I've ever experienced. We left after the third quarter to hike across campus back to where we parked and to get to this popular pizza place not far from campus. We figured we'd beat the crowd. Well, we got to Rocco's to eat and we were seated in a back room. There was hardly anyone there because they were still at the game. The waitress comes up and informs us that a celebrity would be coming in soon and sitting at the table next to us and she just wanted to inform us in case we wanted to stay around a while longer after we finished eating. Sure enough...Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez (a Disney Channel actress), and Taylor's family came walking in and sat at the table literally 12 inches from ours (it was a pretty cozy and crowded eating area). It was so ironic that Matt and I had talked about how we didn't see her walk in and then she comes in and sits down right next to us. Unfortunately we did not get any pictures or autographs...you could tell they really wanted their privacy plus the restaurant was more crowded then and it was a buzz with talk of her being there. Thus, we just glanced at her a few times and left them alone. We tried to be respectful but I'm sure she didn't leave the place without signing a few autographs because there were so many kids around. It was a nice bonus to the day :) Anyway, that's the scoop from the weekend. Enjoy a few pics from
our trip!!!

driving through Purdue's campus

Administration Building

paintings on ceiling of gold dome on the Administration building

Bagpipe Band playing "Amazing Grace"

the Basillica...my pics of the inside weren't good because it was too dark. However, it is truly beautiful.

the Grotto...people were lining up to light a candle and pray

Lou Holtz statue in front of the Lou Holtz gate of Notre Dame Stadium

touchdown Jesus!

Notre Dame Stadium

I'm not sure what these guys are called but they marched in front of the band and everyone was chanting "Here Come the Irish."

View from our seats