Thursday night saw us on the plane to DTW en route to one of our best friend's commencement at the University of Michigan. After a 3 hour flight, we arrived in the morning (at 6am!), picked up our rental car, and drove to Observatory Street. Braving the icy cold wind, we walked to Nelson's dorm, got dressed, and rushed to his first commencement at 8am. I was so proud to see my best friend on stage, presenting his Sociology Honors thesis.
We toured UMich, and walked, I can almost positively say, the whole of Ann Arbor. Everything about UMich is so pretty; the buildings, landscape, interior design, atmosphere... I wished I studied there. We had Chinese food for dinner, a rare treasure at Michigan! Nonetheless, the food was pretty delicious. Either that, or we were just famished.
I wouldn't want to remember where we stayed for the night, because it wasn't very pleasant. Let's just say, I got through the night, and couldn't wait to leave in the morning to Nelson's college commencement at the Michigan Stadium. The view was just spectacular. You really need to be there to experience it. Then we had lunch at Gratzi!, an Italian restaurant that serves only superb food.
After lunch...well, this is the part we bid farewell, because time seems to fly when we are having a great time. J and I were planning to head to Detroit, and Nelson went back to campus for his last graduation ceremony. Four years of a solid strong friendship... we promised to keep in touch and visit each other soon. Hong Kong, soon.
Detroit was not what I had expected. The factories were abandoned, windows smashed broken, bullet shots, vandalized buildings, heap after heap of trash, old car tires all left to rot. On the brighter side, we walked along the Michigan River, saw the Canadian border, toured General Motors, drove around Greek Town.
Seeing that we had time and nothing to do at Detroit, we drove back to Ann Arbor to get souvenirs, only to end up losing the parking ticket and had to pay a whopping 24USD, when we were only parked for less than 30 minutes. Dang! Should have just stayed in Detroit and do nothing.
We were short for time by now and by the time we bought our dinner to eat on the plane, the gate was almost closing! Anyhow, we made it back to LA. Everything seemed so surreal these two days. I just wished you're still here in the states.