Princeton Library

I also had the opportunity to visit Princeton while I was in New Jersey for training. Kim came by the hotel and picked me up and we drove into Princeton. We were meeting up with Terry for a moderator’s breakfast at PJ’s Pancake House. The day was sunny but cold especially when the wind whipped around the buildings but we had a sheltered area in front of the restaurant to wait for a table. The pancakes were fluffy, the coffee hot and the conversation fun. Time passed quickly.

Kim and Terry had other commitments for the rest of the day so I decided to stay in Princeton and walk around the village and the campus. I printed out walking tour of historic Princeton as a guide.

First I did a quick walk around Palmer Square. The shops were just starting to open and there was a lovely brass band playing carols. I had passed a shop that had a sign out for hot chocolate. That sounded so good plus I heard a mother talking to her boy about going to get hot chocolate. I went in and warmed up with a cup of thick dark hot chocolate from The Bent Spoon. I should have picked up a can of the mix. Yummm..

Next I headed down a couple of blocks to see if I could find where Albert Einstein lived while at Princeton. I couldn’t really locate it but I had a chance to see a bit of the neighborhood. I walked a bit around the grounds at Morven. It was a country estate of Richard Stockton one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I considered doing a tour but I decided to head over to the University campus instead.

I loved the campus. It was my first visit to an Ivy League school. It was so different from the campuses in the west. Most of the western universities campuses are mostly modern buildings. Heck, Washington probably wasn’t even a state when some of the Princeton buildings were built. I particularly loved the dorm and quad areas. It felt almost like I was at Hogswart. I also remembered the movie “A Beautiful Mind” which was also filmed on campus.

I headed towards the University chapel and was pleasantly surprised to find out there was a free Christmas concert by the Princeton Choral scheduled to begin in a half hour. I headed into the Library to get warm and to look at the exhibit of the maps of the exploration of the Pacific Ocean. These were maps of the voyages of Captain Cook. It was fun to see how they depicted Borneo, Australia and Hawaii (Sandwich Islands) on the maps of the explorations.

The concert was beautiful and perfect for the season. The golden sun was just setting as the concert finished and I took a taxi back to the hotel. A quick but satisfying visit.