“Right,” I confirm. I’ve uttered the same statement before, but having met Ellie, I feel a bit bad for concluding nepotism was the reason for her spot in the program. Probably has a little something to do with the fact that she’s the only person who hasn’t acted like my presence is an insult. “And she’s visited here a bunch because of it, so she’ll probably know a good spot.”

Ellie recommends a place on the opposite side of the city, prompting my first encounter with public transportation. The tiny town in Georgia where I grew up most certainly didn’t have it, and I have a car at Lancaster. From what I’ve heard about transit systems, I wasn’t missing much.

However, there’s none of the horrors I’ve heard described when we find the correct entrance and head underground. No graffiti, no urine scent, no garbage. We buy our tickets from a machine that helpfully has an English selection and then hop on the first train that arrives; one that is hopefully heading to our destination.

The inside of the subway is just as clean as the station was, with spotless plastic chairs we settle in and a map of blinking dots that display where we are. With a quiet whoosh, the doors close, and we speed off into darkness.

Two stops later, we emerge from the cool underground back into the warm sunshine. This part of the city looks just like the section we came from, except it’s significantly more convoluted. Less residential and more commercial. Restaurants, gift shops, bookstores, coffee shops, and bars line the street, interspersed by tourist traps that boast windows filled with flouncy clothing and t-shirts bedazzled with snappy slogans.

Natalie drags us all into the third gift store we pass. It’s small and narrow, but what it lacks in width, it more than makes up for in height. Soaring shelves cover every inch of available wall space, packed with every souvenir imaginable. There are cuckoo clocks, Hummel figurines, leather-bound books of Grimms’ fairy tales, outfits with full skirts and suspenders, ornaments, bits of rubble claiming to be pieces of the Berlin Wall, beer steins, fedoras, mustard, and more gummy bears than I’ve ever seen in my life. All filling the tall shelves in an explosion of culture and color.

We all disperse to peruse the store on our own. I’m flipping through the postcard selection to find ones to send to Emma, Cressida, and Anne when Natalie bounces over to me holding two t-shirts. “Which one for the Theta kegger?”

I glance between the gray option that reads I’m Just Here for the Beer and the pink Life is Brewtiful one.

“Pink,” I decide.