The Great South Bend Adventure, Part Two: Touring Notre Dame

I quickly learned during my trip to South Bend that South Bend really has just one main attraction, and that is the University of Notre Dame. Thus, Colleen and I decided to take an official tour of the university during my trip. Now Colleen attended graduate school at Notre Dame and just graduated with her Master's of Divinity (or M-Div, if you want to use the proper theological lingo) last spring. So I'm sure the tour wasn't quite as exciting to her as it was to me, but she did admit that she learned a few things on the tour. Since I am a factoid person, I will share with you some of the interesting facts I learned about Notre Dame, in bullet form:

"Notre Dame" is French for "Our Lady", referring to the Virgin Mary (I suppose I could have figured this out on my own, but I never really put that much thought into it)

Notre Dame has about 8,000 undergrads and about 2,000 graduate students

80% of the students at Notre Dame are Catholic

Notre Dame has no fraternities or sororities, but dorm life is like Greek life in a way. All of the dorms are co-ed, and students usually live in the same dorm their entire college career. Each dorm hosts parties and dances, does fundraising activities, and supports different philanthropies.

The average ACT score of students at Notre Dame is 32-34. Whoa.

You have to be smart to go to Notre Dame, but you don't necessarily have to be good at football...

Notre Dame's "trademark" is the Golden Dome. Atop the Golden Dome is an 18-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary.

Another big landmark on campus is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It is the tallest building on campus. Here are some pictures I took from outside the Basilica:





And here are some pictures from inside the Basilica:





Another landmark is the grotto. I took a picture of it on our tour, but I was also able to get pictures of it at evening and then at night:







And, of course, who could forget the stadium and football field?











And then there is my personal favorite landmark, "Touchdown Jesus". "Touchdown Jesus" is a mural painted on the side of the library that overlooks the stadium. With the outstretched arms, you can see why it is nicknamed "Touchdown Jesus".





I was also quite impressed with all of the fall colors on Notre Dame's campus. We just don't see those fall colors down South. While most people on the tour were taking pictures of buildings, I was taking pictures of trees...









Overall, I was very impressed with my tour of Notre Dame!