My third and last full day at Purdue. With both the previous pictures having been taken indoors I thought it was time to get out into the continuing sunshine. This is an old campus but very few of the buildings on it are particularly old, it seems to have been completely rebuilt: the bell tower looks old but was only constructed in the 1990s. It’s been a good trip to the US in various ways but I am very tired and now it’s time to go home.
The very first time I came to the USA was in 1989, to New York City, and I remember that the first meal I had was in a place just like this. That seemed somehow so quintessentially American that I have not forgotten it. This is more of a recreated fake than the genuine diner — being in the basement of the Purdue University Union — but it still served a decent breakfast.
Another campus to add to the list — Purdue University in Indiana, the people who were good enough to invite me to the USA in the first place on this trip. This place is especially known for its programmes in aviation and spaceflight — Neil Armstrong studied here (which is a cool alumnus to have) — and engineering, hence the nickname of its football team, the Boilermakers. This mural in the campus’s new learning center, open only a week, reflects this. It was a day where I was too busy to particularly get around to taking many photos, so this was a rush job I know, but there’s one thing I do like about it, which is the apparent anachronism of the guy standing on the left of the big picture: is that a cellphone in his pocket? Sure looks like one. (Actually it’s a slide rule, apparently.)
