A majority of the senior class and even some of the junior class was in attendance for Riverfest 2016. This is a famous Marist event in which faculty and students alike come together to drink, eat, dance and take in the beauty of the Hudson River for the last time. To say the least, the event was a blast in all of it’s rainy glory. Here are the 5 stages of being there:
1. Catching up with old friends
Whether it was your freshman year floor-mates or your friends from sophomore year, almost everyone from the class of 2016 was at Riverfest. With a little liquid confidence people were getting along swimmingly. Whether there was a falling out or you simply grew apart, Riverfest was a time to put that entirely aside and reminisce about the good times we’ve had at Marist. This was undoubtedly one of my favorite parts of the night.
2. Deciding what to drink
Given that we only had four drink vouchers, we had to choose carefully for what we wanted to use them on. This consisted of trying a bunch of peoples’ colorful drinks or the consistent tipsy comments, “What’s that one?” Though it was disappointing that they were only serving beer, wine and those weird fruity things, it was more than enough for us to enjoy our time.
3. Should we dance?
Sometimes when there’s a good song on, you just feel the urge deep within your bones to start dancing – whether you’re good at it or not. At Riverfest there was a small little space for those who felt a song in their heart and needed to dance it out. Either way, I’m sure a lot of us contemplated it even if we never made it during Riverfest to bust our sweetest moves. Mahoney’s is a different story.
4. Waiting for the food
Though the little sandwiches and chili were some of Sodexo’s finest work, everyone was really waiting on the pizza rolls, mozz sticks and chicken fingers. Get a bunch of drunk college kids together around fried food and you can bet your bottom dollar that nothing will get in the way of it’s full consumption. Much to our dismay there were no mozz sticks, but it was enough to hold us over for the long trek back to our houses. I’ll give Sodexo a solid C+ on this one, as per usual.
5. Realizing our days at Marist are numbered
As if the graduation countdowns plastered all over campus weren’t enough, Riverfest was but another reminder of how limited our time is here. There was a point at Riverfest where it was pouring rain, I was standing outside with all of my best friends, watching the fireworks as much as I could without getting rain in my eyes and I shed my first tears. Maybe the tears weren’t warranted but in this moment, it hit me how much I have truly loved every second of this beautiful school and how I am going to miss Marist every day that I’m not here. Let the month of tears begin.
Thank you Riverfest for bringing us all together, reminding us why we chose this gorgeous school and for making our last few weeks here so incredibly memorable.