Duke: more fun than a lacrosse party

Best place to eat on campus:
I took in lunch at the great hall which had a huge variety of foods to chose from. There was a subway and an ice cream place, but I chose to go with the cafeteria style dining. I chose the salad bar (gotta keep my girlish figure) but there were sandwich and wraps being made and a whole slew of vegetarian options.

Best place to eat off campus:
There are lots of different restaurants along ninth street for dukies to chow down at just off of east campus. A good variety exists between pizza, chicken, gyros, and even a restaurant for fine dining if that is what you are looking for. I'd recommend just taking a walk down the street and seeing what jumps out at you, to me it was tacos, but to you it might be a sandwich. Seeing as they are all so close together it won't hurt to survey the block and grab what suits you best.

Best place to drink:
There are a couple of bars on ninth street and the one that I stumbled into was Charlie's and it could not have been better. Thursday is karaoke night and it brings an interesting mix of locals and duke students which I was told was rare around town. Not only did Charlie's have good jack and coke's and delicious cheeseburgers (comes with slaw on it and homemade chips with ranch) but everyone in there seemed like they just wanted to have fun. Everyone that got up there and tried their hand at a song was welcomed with cheers and left to applause (there was one exception for a guy who didn't know the words to lets get it on, but he deserved it). I would also suggest checking it out because of the guy who apparently brings his own guitar every week, doesn't plug it in and pretends he knows every song that comes in. In my opinion every good bar needs a little dose of crazy to keep the mood light.

Athletic venues:
The football stadium on campus greatly surprised me in the amount of people that it can seat due to the sunken in bowl seating. The stadium itself is a cool mixture of the classic old school bowl mixed with the horseshoe layout to create a really cool visual that can be taken in with ease from above the stadium.

I thought the baseball stadium was also a very interesting structure, all of the seats were behind the plate and were covered by a big slanting tin roof. I spent a lot of time sitting and trying to figure out where I had seen this type of setup before and then it hit me, camp productions and small outside concert venues. That's not to say that the ballpark isn't a nice place to be, it is just simply unique and homey, offering a unique place to catch a game.
If you hate duke or cameron indoor stop reading here. I wandered around the arena pulling and knocking on doors and eventually found a woman that offered to let me in. I talked to her in the entrance way for awhile and eventually got around to asking her if I could walk around and see the arena. Her response of, "go wherever you want, just don't scuff the floor." floored me and before i knew it i was sitting in the first row of the upper section looking over the court and taking it all in. I sat there for awhile and did the only thing I could think of, I called my dad. I tried to explain how cameron indoor felt like a church to me, with the light only coming in from the stained windows just above the three national championship banners making it seem like they are they only thing the architect wanted you to look at. I sat in complete silence thinking about the stories of crowds so loud the floor would wobble and make even dribbling hard. I thought about how much I dislike duke and hate dick vitale every time he mentions them while calling another game. I stared up at the names hanging from the rafters that read like a who's who of amazing college players who flopped in the pros (apologies to alana beard). Finally I walked down the stairs to the arena floor, walked to the middle and took it all in. As much as people can say they hate duke or coach k or even college basketball for that fact, i truly think that everyone should visit cameron indoor one time in there life even if its not to see a game. For me it was an amazing experience and please forgive me for waxing on about its greatness.


Miscellaneous:
The duke campus was a very interesting place to visit. Parts of it are absolutely spectacular with great gothic architecture that make it fun to just walk around the buildings, while other parts have been built more recently and just don't bring much feeling let alone the same awe that the older sections provide. A part of the campus I thought was really interesting was a small wall by the divinity school that has all of the names of duke students that have died while serving and protecting their country. The aspect that I found amazing about it was that I could not find a single name that had been put there after the 1950's. Maybe the wall just hasn't been updated, but I felt like it was a landmark of how people of my grandfathers generation would go to school and then head to war and then come back and pick their lives back up.
On a lighter note I learned that for fraternities to have parties on campus they must not only rent kegs from the school itself, but also hire school sponsored bartenders. This rule lead to students seeking more off campus housing and having parties and leading to more complaints from neighbors and as the public saw a few years ago more police interaction with students.
One last thing, duke has a great student published daily newspaper that was being run even though I was there after graduation. I was really impressed with it, even though the comics section consisted of Dilbert and Doonesbury, so if you are on campus make sure you pick up a copy.