College In Philadelphia

I have never been to college before. I have never lived anywhere in my life except in the Silicon Valley, in California. I tell you this not to brag, but to hope that you understand that when I say I am not used to multi-story buildings or basements, you will understand later on why this post is about buildings, a rather trivial aspect to most other college students.
In the vast majority of American higher education learning centers, usually referred to as college, there are groups of men and women who have voluntarily signed an agreement to live together under certain rules and codes of honor. For women, these groups are called Sororities. For men: Fraternities. On most college campuses, these fraternities and sororities live in Victorian-style houses along a street or drive known as, "frat row." During the first week of the school year, an event cataloged in American cinema such as American Pie and the TV show Greek, occurs called "rushing," in which the fraternities and sororities aim to recruit incoming freshmen. To get freshmen thinking about "greek life," as fraternities and sororities are collectively referred, there is a night where all the houses of the fraternities and sororities are open to the public. Enticed by the allure of greek life, college life in general, and the surefire draw for college students, free food, hundreds of freshmen decended on 34th street north of Powelton, where Drexel's frat row is centered.
The atmosphere is a sheer wall of giddy curiosity, the need to meet new people, and excitement at the abundance of people also experiencing the first two emotions. I was among one of the sidewalk-choking throng of freshmen poking around from house to house, immediately judging the people, and far more interesting to me, the exquisite east coast style of living. I was walking around with hundreds of people I had never seen before in my life, but I simply could not pull my eyes away from the wonderous roman style pillars, brick facades, the labyrinth of lounges, fireside rooms and the awkwardly-shaped rooms in unexpected places that give a house the feel of age, tradition, and respect.
I felt like I was 5 again, on my first trip to Disneyland, where the magic and the seemless coordination of pleasure was overwhelming. Every word said by a frat member had the texture of class inside the worn houses. There was the sense that many people had been here, left their mark, and gone on to great things. One particular house stood out to me, as it was at the end of the block that is home to frat row.
At the end of 34th street, recessed from a cobbled sidewalk shaded by magestic sycamore trees, stood the Pi Kappa Epsilon house, commonly called Pike. The yard was fenced by a wrought iron fence bordered by ruddy brick. A dull concrete walk flanked by a yard of thin grass stole no attention from the four towering roman pillars guarding the front doors. A balcony doubling as the roof for the front door was the throne for a DJ responsible for the music firing out of speakers mounted on windows. The noise lost it's edge the second you stepped across the threshold of the house, entering a well-lit entryway with bright wood floors, and ornate crown molding on the ceiling that still throbbed with the bass. The walls and the floor bordered towering bookshelves filled with photo albums; the pool room was red carpet surrounded by trophy cases displaying the frat's distinguished acomplishments, as well as individual member achievements.
Everything from the oil-based space heaters to the faded wooden banisters coiling around at the bottom of the thick, capeted stairs screamed tradtition. The word itself seemed to derive meaning from the way that each room flowed into one another; no room was spared connection to at least two other rooms and the cramped main hallway. Each contingent of frat members added an air of prestiege to the surroundings, changing what would otherwise be a decrepid old building into one where every nic in the wood, and each faded picture of brothers, as members of fraternities are called, begged inquery into the whereabouts of the subjects.
The buzz I got from being around so many new people was blown out of the water from the itching curiosity I got from trying to fill the appetite my eye had for all these foreign structures. Basements! 2nd stories! THIRD stories! My mind was abuzz with all these things that California couldn't provide. Simple things that I would not have even given a second thought to otherwise were novelties.
Now, people are always different, but they're different everywhere, so in a way, people are constant. The backdrop on which you meet those people changes everything for me, at least, most recently proved by the evening on frat row. I am already rambling, and to go on about the people would be redundant, because everyone knows the thrill of meeting new people. What made that night memorable for me was everything not the people; the ambiance, if you will, of the east coast. That aura of age, tradition, and a sort of attention to detail that was ornate, but not a gross exaggeration of fashion poured from every house on that row, and even more from the pike house. Sitting there in it's almost confident age, the house was almost saying, "this is how things are here"