The magic card

Our student id cards give us free bus rides on Rhode Island transit. Anywhere in RI you want to go, it's free so we've nicknamed our id cards the magic cards because of all the access to activities we are discovering come with that card. A small group of exchange students and I took a one hour bus trip south of Providence to Newport, which is on an island.

from left to right: Anjali from England, myself, Amaury from France, and Katharina from Germany.


Newport is a lot like Providence with its old homes, but windy with the ocean wind. The tourist info guy said that during the Revolutionary war, the British blockaded Newport, if they had not, Newport would have been as big as New York. But it isn't.



USA's oldest pub is in Newport:




But one thing that is different from Providence is that Newport is quite tourist-y. It's the home of former "summer homes" of the likes of the Vanderbilts and Astors. These mansions are so huge no one can afford to live in them so they're just museums people pay to tour inside. They looked menacing and over the top to me.



I saw some photos of the interiors and they look like faux-Versailles Donald Trump style.

So we did a lot of walking that day and then were invited to a house party that night, which had a lot of positive vibrations, the mostly Brown students were super friendly.



Last night our id cards gave us access to a free concert on the Brown campus with free pizza, curry, ice cream and coffee, and then a midnight showing of This is Spinal Tap where popcorn was provided. There are so many activities around college hill, it's almost like a summer camp. As exchange students we're benifiting from the high tuition these kids pay, and we're constantly surprised at the little privileges that come with this magic card.