Shaan is a rising senior and wants to study biology. Shaan prefers small liberal arts schools in the northeast and doesn’t want to attend college or university below the Mason-Dixon line. So this summer, we toured Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, while on a trip to pick up Kiran from a ten-day summer wilderness retreat in Vermont.
We stayed overnight in the Massachusetts border town of North Adams and drove to Williamstown the next morning.
It was strange seeing my last name on many t-shirts and college brochures. Williams is the 3rd most common last name in the United States, so I shouldn't be surprised that there would be a town somewhere with that name. But still. We spent some time in the Williams College gift shop looking for the right shirt with Williams on it. We didn’t want purple or the word college. Just Williams. We bought four grey T-shirts with the words Williams printed in white. It will be fun twinning with the kids — is that the right word?
Spring Street is the main “downtown” area for students of Williams College. It’s a bit longer than Princeton’s Spring Street and has a few more shops, but it seems to be the only shopping/dining area within walking distance of the campus. Princeton has the advantage of multiple streets.
One side of Spring Street has the Williams College gift shop, a Mexican restaurant, the Purple Pub and a few other shops, including a consignment store. At the end of Spring Street is an ice creamery, Lickety Split.
On the other side of Spring Street is the Pera Mediterranean Bistro. The shot was not planned. I was walking along with the tour guide and saw this elderly couple stopping to look at the menu. I love the look of brick and the ivy and the sidewalk dining. For me, this evoked images of my college days when we would drive up to Boston and hang out on the streets of Harvard.
