Spring break 2018 sent Commons residents on adventures all across the globe. Here are the stories of how four first-year students spent their week away from school.
Seth Drey
A hurricane may have the power to topple trees and upend lives, but it cannot dampen the spirit of an island or deter a first-year Commodore. Seth Drey spent spring break in Puerto Rico, where residents are still recovering from the category-five hurricane that struck last September.
“We stayed in San Juan and spent a lot of time in Old San Juan and also got out to some cool, more remote places,” he said. “Some places were obviously still affected by Maria… it dropped as much rain in thirty hours as Harvey did over the course of three days and destroyed eighty percent of their agriculture.”
Despite the lasting devastation, Drey found some aspects of the island remained unaltered by the storm.
“The people were super friendly, and there was still lots of beauty in Old San Juan and the nature areas,” he said.
This was Drey’s first time in a Spanish-speaking region, and he valued the chance to utilize his Spanish language skills and experience another culture. He visited a variety of places, from the beach to Castillo San Felipe del Morro, a sixteenth-century fort and world heritage site.
“The weather was so nice, but the sun was unforgiving and burned me bad,” Drey said.
Besides a sunburn, spring break left him with memories of “awesome” Puerto Rican cuisine, crystal-blue ocean waves, and the fun of meeting people from a new corner of the world.
Oliver Cenedella
Spring break isn’t always about chasing warm weather. For Oliver Cenedella, it meant braving the cold and hitting the slopes on a skiing trip in Colorado.
“I live in Boulder, Colorado, and I stayed there for a few days until Tuesday, then met up with three friends from Vandy and went to Breckenridge,” Cenedella said.
The foursome brought a range of experience to the mountains. Cenedella, a seasoned skier, had the chance to share one of his favorite pastimes with a friend who had never skied before. Watching his skills progress beyond the bunny slopes quickly became a rewarding part of the week.
“By the fourth day… we took him down a double black,” Cenedella said. “By the end of the day, he was looking really good.”
The group’s accomplishments did not come without challenges. Some initially had trouble adjusting to the higher elevation and harsh winter climate.
“The elements were not on our side,” Cenedella said.
Despite the drop in air pressure, higher altitude brought more adventure for the four Commodores. In addition to skiing, they went hiking in the mountains. Cenadella discovered a few slopes farther from the lifts, where he described the skiing as “excellent.” He documented his run with a Go Pro camera, a sure way to make this break one to never forget.
Amira Vivrette
It’s “The Big Apple,” “The City That Never Sleeps,” and maybe even “The Greatest City in the World.” Whatever you choose to call it, New York City served as a spring break destination for students like Amira Vivrette.
“I went on different tours with Student Media at Vanderbilt,” Vivrette said. “We saw Facebook, CNN, Nickelodeon, and NBC. It was a lot of fun and a great opportunity to meet and talk with Vanderbilt alumni and see future careers in media.”
After traveling with the Student Media group on Monday and Tuesday, Vivrette stayed in New York for the rest of the week to explore the city with a friend.
“We did a lot of tourist things,” she said. “We got to see Central Park, the Met, the LOVE Sculpture, and other cool things we were interested in. We took the ferry and just tried a bunch of new foods.”
Vivrette had the chance to see more behind-the-scenes work on media productions (while also enjoying a few laughs) when the pair landed tickets to the tapings of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” Braving the second major winter storm of the week, their ticket numbers were the last two called from the line of people hoping to attend “The Tonight Show.”
“It was very exciting to see the shows produced live… just to see it done and then watch it on TV the next day to see how everything worked out,” Vivrette said. “It was cool to see all that stuff from the media tour actually put into action.”
Sharonda Adams
Vanderbilt proudly hosts the first Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program, an idea created in 1986 that has since spread to universities across the country. ASB provides students with the opportunity to participate in service projects during their break, all working on different causes in various locations nationwide.
Sharonda Adams traveled to Utah last week on an ASB trip focused on environmental conservation.
“For my trip, I helped to remove invasive species from the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument,” Adams said. “I camped with eleven other Vanderbilt students, and each day we would chop down Russian olives.”
The Russian Olive Tree is an invasive species which poses a threat to the health of the Escalante River and its watershed. In collaboration with the Escalante River Watershed Partnership, ASB students worked to remove the trees and restore parts of the monument’s two million acres to their natural ecological conditions.
Adams found the trip to be not only beneficial to the environment, but also a personally rewarding way to spend a week of spring break.
“The beautiful views and major bonding with my other site members made it a true week to remember,” she said.
