Roanoke Alumni Weekend

Last May, I graduated from Roanoke College and have been navigating post-grad life ever since. Every April, Roanoke has their Alumni Weekend which is a highly anticipated event for not only alumni, but also for the current students. Alumni come back and visit with their friends, professors, teammates, and walk the campus where they once lived their glory days. My previous alumni weekend experiences were a little different than this one. In past years I was an under grad who is partaking in festivities, excited that my friends were visiting; now the tables have turned and I was the one visiting. My weekend was full of great friends, lots of food, and seeing a lot of people that I have missed having nearby within the past year. Trying to fit all of my weekend into a blog post is a crazy thought, but here are some summarized highlights!My weekend kicked off with some close friends and I having dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Beamers 25, which I wrote about in my blog post about Roanoke back in October. I will never get sick of eating the Frank's Fries, or really any of their food if I'm being honest. It's all just so delicious!On Friday, one of my best friends Audra arrived and she, myself, and our friend Stephanie went to downtown Roanoke to walk around. I discovered that you could go atop the roof at Center In The Square and see pretty much all of Roanoke; It was absolutely beautiful and I don't know how I never knew about it! We then stopped into Billy's for a drink; one that I had always heard my friends talk about loving, but I had never tried it until Friday. It's now definitely a favorite drink of mine!Friday night and all of Saturday were filled with seeing sisters, friends, taking lots of pictures, and trying to pretend that graduation never happened. Weekends like this remind me what I loved about college and make me wish that I didn't have to go back to reality once the weekend came to an end. My sisters and I attended a couple sorority events where alumna and current sisters got to catch up. I also went to a couple fraternity houses with my friends Caroline, Nicole, and Cait to see friends there, too. Though the weekend was busy, we also had time to visit nearly all of our favorite local bars/restaurants. Trying to fit everything into such a short time span isn't ideal but we definitely tried our hardest and we ended up all having such a great time!The reason alumni weekend is so highly anticipated is because it's a weekend where all of our college friends are in one place. I made my best friends in college and moving back home post-grad was kind of a scary thought. After graduating college people inevitably go in different directions, move all over, and have varying schedules. It's definitely harder to see friends as often once this happens, but having a weekend like Alumni Weekend brings everyone together. I am probably not alone when I say that I wish Alumni Weekend were every weekend... But for now I will just have to hold on to the memories and patiently wait for next April!

Emily Riane