By Jolene Brink

San Francisco is a city of redwoods, hippies and coastline.

This year it was also home to the 21st National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and the story of 12 CSB/SJU students eager to explore California.

It was still snowing in Minnesota when our plane landed on the West Coast. I’d been crawling under my fluorescent lamp for weeks trying to get tan. Just imagine the joyful shock I felt seeing sunlight and green plants for the first time in months.

The NCUR was held at Dominican University near some of the most expensive real-estate in the San Francisco Bay area. An estimated 2,220 undergraduate students from more than 250 colleges and universities attended.

It was a delicious buffet of detailed abstracts, power point slide shows and life stories.

From presentations exploring the anarchist qualities of Batman to the interpretation of Etruscan cultural material, we eagerly tumbled between student speakers with sunburnt faces and flip-flops.

Everyone had something to share.

I met a retired University of Eau Claire professor who, at 65 years old wanted to learn another language, so he moved to Germany last summer. His advice for me? Nobody can take your experiences or knowledge, so spend money on books and travel.

Taking his advice, I spent Friday tromping around San Francisco with a handful of CSB/SJU students. We walked from the Marina District past Haight Street, into Golden Gate Park and the Castro district, where we caught a subway into China Town for supper.

The experience of wandering 12 hours on foot through a strange city reignited my senses. I have never been so alive.

Saturday afternoon, we drove along Shoreline Highway, 1000 feet above the Pacific Ocean in a 12-passenger van listening to classic rock music. Maybe this was what the 1960s felt like — seagulls, cracked rocks and rolling hills of purple lupine lined the road.

We ate scallops, danced to jazz in the street, hugged redwoods, poked through dusty bookshops and lost track of time until Sunday, when we returned knowing the landfill of responsibilities waiting.

But the return is as important as the journey.

It reminds us what we’re lucky to have. Whether a college apartment or a parents’ house, everyone needs a place to unpack dirty laundry and appreciate his or her community of friends.

Mine were waiting, eager to hear stories.

I could never thank them enough for their enduring friendship. I’ll be in Greece next semester while they live in Westkaemper, working toward future careers as nurses, politicians and botanists. I dedicate this final column to them.

For our semesters of travel, beyond our first year selves and the women we’re becoming, for guacamole, dancing and Sex in the City. For threatening to transfer somewhere warmer and realizing we aren’t ready to leave, for learning that time apart is just as important as time together.

Someday I might live in San Francisco, but for the next two weeks I live with three amazing girls in our apartment of dirty dishes and inside jokes, overgrown plants and borrowed clothes.

In many ways, I will never leave.

Thank you, roommates. I take you with me wherever I go.

Filed under: Editorial, Opinion by Jennifer Mattson