Celebrating my birthday at Duke

Birthday Celebration at Duke

I spent a week in Durham visiting Michael for my birthday. I worked from his apartment while he was in class and we were able to spend the evenings together cooking, cheering on Duke at basketball games, meeting his friends, and seeing a couple movies.

Duke Campus

Michael took me for a tour of the undergraduate campus and the business school building.

I was called a church snob... The church on Duke's campus is pretty, but compared to the churches I have been in lately, nothing about it really stood out. When I wasn't very impressed, I earned the name "church snob".

There were oversized painted benches in front of the different undergrad dorms.

They burn the benches after the men's basketball game against UNC each year.

Undergrads camping out to get tickets to the men's basketball games. They will start camping out months before the UNC game. Crazy kids!

My first Duke game! We got to go to two games this week and I obviously loved both of them. We snuck into empty seats about 8 rows behind the Duke bench. AWESOME seats for a very intense game against NC State. It was supposed to be a blow out, but Duke had to fight their way through most of the game to pull off the win.

Student section bowing to Coach K who has just entered the stadium.

Coach K trying to motivate the team.

I spotted JJ Redick sitting right behind the bench (lower right corner) at the NC State game

Henderson is amazing. The crowd across the court from us is the Cameron Crazies (Undergrads). It was such a great atmosphere in such a small stadium. The cheers were hilarious and I think most of the time the people cheering the chants were the only ones that could understand what they were saying.

We took a break from cooking on Wednesday night and Michael took me out for a nice dinner for my birthday.

Game #2 vs. Maryland - Me with my Duke student ID and season pass. I didn't think I was going to pull off a very good short, blond, Ashley, but it worked!

The Blue Devil is surfing over band members that are rolling across the court and yes, that is a Maryland Terrapin on his pitchfork!

Surfing again against NC State. He surfs the entire length of the court. I am assuming these band members have a few bruises afterwards.

We had such a great time at the games! The Maryland ended up being a complete blowout, but it was fun to see how impressively Duke played.

Crazy Towel Guy! This guy is a longtime Duke fan and goes to every game. At each game the student sections cheer for him and he stands up to accept the applause and wave his towel in the air.

Other than the basketball games, we...

...did a lot of cooking

...had a delicious Polish dinner

...went to Fuqua Friday (a celebration every Friday at the Fuqua Business School at Duke)

...saw Lola Rennt (an odd German movie) and Slumdog Millionaire

...had the best vanilla chai tea I have ever tasted. I can't wait for another one.

We had a really great time in Durham this week. It was hard to leave, but I will be back for Easter!