Northern Illinois University (NIU) in
DeKalb, Illinois is going to be our home away from home for the next four weeks. A public university founded in 1895, it has 25,000 students in seven degree-granting colleges that together offer 54 undergraduate and 74 graduate programs, and 12 doctoral programs.
DeKalb is about an hour and 30 minutes (104 kilometers) west of
Chicago. Sad to say, there is no train service to DeKalb so we couldn't sneak out to
Chicago that easily. Oh well!
Anyway, We got to tour campus today and visited some of its older buildings, including Altgeld Hall which houses the administration, and the East Lagoon where some wild Canadian geese can be found. NIU was in the news early this year being the site of another campus shooting incident in February. But all is well here and life has moved on. As the motto of NIU goes:
"Forward, Together Forward."
DeKalb, Illinois is a university town playing host to Northern Illinois University. We'll be leaving DeKalb in a few days. I can't imagine this has been my home away from home for the past four weeks! Did you know that barbed wire was invented in DeKalb, Illinois? There are a lot of heritage structures in DeKalb which remind us of this aspect of its history.
Some of the highlights during our stay were a barbecue picnic where we grilled some steak, nights out and karaoke in Starbusters every Wednesday, home-cooked dinners, and a picnic hosted by the Filipino community in DeKalb and Sycamore. Thank you to the Fil-Am community and to all the friends I met along the way. I had one hell of a time!
