Have you ever been to a huge college like Alabama? I recently just went to the University of Alabama to visit my brother who is a junior there. The experience I had was just something I’ve never experienced before. The schools in New York can’t even compete with this school.

When we arrived from our flight, I was kind of in a state of shock because it looked nothing like New York. Alabama has lots of trees and land everywhere, which NY doesn’t. We walked around the college for a few hours and didn’t even make a dent in the whole college campus. The whole campus is around 2,000 acres of land and trying to walk that would take you days. Seeing the amazing buildings and even all the fraternities/sororities is just jaw-dropping. We walked past the largest sorority house in the United States, which looked like the white house- extravagant and massive.The student life there was just something else; before every home game, everyone tailgates in this huge park. They bring tents, TVs , catered food and a lot more. We took a brief tour of the business area of the college, and the buildings are the best-of-the-best. I was kind of overwhelmed since this school has about 40,000 students, which is four times the size of the town of East Rockaway, which really amazed me.

My family and I went during family weekend, so all the families were so excited to tailgate and watch the game. Before the game on that Saturday, they had different booths in front of the stadium where you can get food and win free stuff. Every home game, the team does something called “The Walk of Champions”, which is when they make a walkway in front of the school for the whole team to walk down. which gives the fans the opportunity to see the players up close. Seeing the players up close was really cool, but the part that was not fun was how hot it was. It was about 95 degrees but sunny which was not very fun. When we walked into the stadium, you can see all the cool frat houses and sororities which was really nice to see from an elevated distance. When I saw the inside of the stadium, I was in shock, it was absolutely unbelievable. This stadium holds 101,000 people and when I looked around it was breath taking. The stadium was all red and the Alabama logo was everywhere, and they even had the best college coach, Nick Saban, around the stadium. Before the start of every game, they have the band play, which was really cool especially since the bad is made up of 400 members and it’s referenced as the million-dollar band since its so special. Alabama was playing a pretty bad team that day, so Alabama was just constantly scoring. In the first quarter, they had three touchdowns. During half-time, they had a huge performance. The whole band was playing, and while they were playing, they would form into different shapes, like the big A for Alabama, and even the elephant (their mascot). The final score for the game was 63-7, Alabama winning.

Other than the amazing football team, the college sits in its own college town.The college town is filled with amazing restaurants and places for the college kids to hang out. After the game, the whole strip of places was completely packed with college students and even some of the players who left with their families which I thought was really nice.

My whole experience at this school and state was something I truly will never forget, from the amazing college campus experience to the amazing food that was around the town. If you have not been to Alabama or even a massive D1 school, I highly recommend visiting, especially during football season, since it’s something you have never experienced before and you will not regret it.