Emily Dickinson's House and Rhode Island

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week and the semester is almost done! Last Friday I spent the afternoon with Carol in Northampton and Amherst. After lunch at a small café in downtown Northampton, we drove to Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst. We took a 45-minute tour of The Homestead, where I learned about one of America’s most famous poets. Did you know that only one photograph was ever taken of her and it was when she was about 16 and a half? I was surprised that we only got to see 4 rooms (parlor, library, her bedroom, and her sister’s bedroom) even though the house was huge.

Saturday morning Kelley and I woke up early to drive to Rhode Island. In Providence we met up with two of her friends who go to school there. We walked around the downtown area and saw the river, Wickenden Street, and Brown’s campus. I had higher expectations for Wickenden Street, which I thought would be a cute street with shops and a few restaurants, but was just kind of an average street with a lot of restaurants. While they went to lunch and walked around more, I visited the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Museum. It was huge and felt kind of like a maze because of all the different rooms on each floor. They had artwork from the Greeks, famous painters like Monet, and some by RISD students.

We then drove to Newport, which was about 45 minutes from Providence. It is a really pretty drive because you go over two bridges (one of which is really high) and see the ocean and city. The first thing we did was walk along Cliff Walk, which is a paved path along the ocean that passes The Breakers (previously the Vanderbilt’s summer home, now a historic landmark) and other mansions. All of Newport was pretty windy, but walking on Cliff Walk was extremely windy. While Kelley and her friends walked along Thames Street, which has several stores, I went to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It was amazing and I spent almost two hours there.  They had exhibits on the history of tennis, Arthur Ashe, Andre Agassi, women’s tennis, and much more. When I was done we drove the Historic Ten Mile Drive, which goes around the city and offers beautiful views of the ocean and gorgeous mansions. We happened to do it while the sun was setting, which was beautiful.

Newport was by far my favorite over Providence. I feel like I could spend more time exploring Newport because driving around I saw lots of streets with restaurants and shops and I love looking at mansions, so I could spend more time doing that. I don’t really feel like there was much more to do in Providence. Something I do wish I could have seen was WaterFire, which wasn’t going on while I was there. Check it out here - http://waterfire.org/about-waterfire/welcome. It sounds amazing!