St Mary’s Lake

beautiful.
can’t get 5 stars because i haven’t swam in it yet.
next summer.. .. .. ..

As a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, I always cringe when people refer to it as Notre Dame University. That’s kind of a personal peeve – although you’d be surprised at how many really well educated people in academia make this mistake – but it’s also kind of ridiculous because (a) I’m normally not a pretentious person and (b) the official name of the school isn’t the University of Notre Dame.
The official name is the University of Notre Dame du Lac. For those of you whose French is rusty, that means «the University of Our Lady of the Lake.» «The Lake»? Which lake? Well, despite the fact that the Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus and the Grotto are far more famous landmarks, Notre Dame has two lakes at the far north end of campus. I’m not sure whether they were man-​made or whether they used to be one lake (which would explain why it’s not «Our Lady of the Lakes»), but I’m glad they exist and that there are two of them.
This review is of St. Mary’s Lake, which is the western one. It’s a little bit smaller than St. Joseph’s Lake, but the main differences between the lakes are that the terrain around St. Mary’s Lake is flatter and has less foliage and that it freezes during the winter. (I’ll explain in a future review why St. Joseph’s Lake doesn’t freeze.)
I love this lake. When I first visited Notre Dame in 1993, I walked around it a few times, saw all these students jogging around it, and saw people playing chess at a bench on its north (?) side. Although I wanted to come to Notre Dame for many other reasons, that trip cemented my desire. Besides being spectacular in myriad ways, Notre Dame is a beautiful place. I say this as someone who hates most of its architecture. Despite some of the monstrosities that the university has erected, especially recently, the natural beauty of Northern Indiana shines through, and St. Mary’s Lake is a good example of that.
When I ended up here in grad school (having officially been denied admission three times so far – I would also be denied a fourth time), I walked around St. Mary’s Lake a bunch of times. In fact, I bet I circled the lake more times in September and October 2001 than I did the rest of the time I was at Notre Dame. Grad school is busy, and I found so many other unique campus landmarks that reinforced my connection to this physical place. It’s not that I began to dislike St. Mary’s Lake; it’s that I began to appreciate other things as well.
I never did play chess with anyone on that bench, but I did have some pretty amazing conversations with people while walking around the lakes, and it was always fun each spring to watch the ducks and geese showing off their offspring.