I have been in Schenectady area for a few weeks to work on my internship at GE Aerospace. So far, outside work hours, I find myself enjoying this green town a little too much. Below are the activities I find interesting here.

Sunset on the Mohawk river

Ultimate Frisbee with the locals

Despite being a small city, Schenectady has its own group of ultimate frisbee players, called Schenectady County Ultimate Frisbee Friends (SCUFF). They have a Facebook group and a Discord server (shared with other towns in the bigger Capital Region area).

Last week, I came as a total stranger to their pick up game at Collins Park and was welcome1. There were a little over 10 players2 in total, ranging from young dudes like me to much older men in their 60s. There are people who lay out and people who only jog. That makes the game pretty fun. The better part: the field and the parking were all free.

Kayaking

There is the sizable Mohawk river where people can go kayaking, sailing, and rowing. I am very lucky to rent a room right on the river bank. Furthermore, my landlord is very friendly, has a dock, and has two kayaks. That means I have access to free a kayak during my stay here.

A joke among my friends is that I kayak to work. That is theoretically possible because our company’s campus is downstream on the same river as my house. But when reality kicks in, it will take about an hour of non-stop paddling to go home from work. That means a no to kayaking to work, at least on a regular basis :)

On a kayaking tour, I saw a tiny hut on the river bank with an airbnb tag and a solar panel. It turns out to be an actual Airbnb property.

Food

All the good food seems to concentrate in Cliffton Park.

For Indian food, I went to Spice Malabar twice because two different friend groups of mine wanted to go there at two different times, which speaks about its quality.

For Vietnamese food, we tried Saigon Spring. The pho was pretty good actually. However, they don’t have che (sweet soup dessert), which is a huge dissapointment.

For dessert, icecream has been my main option. There is a NY gas station chain called Stewart’s Shops with very good icecream. I recommend chocolate flavor for those who want something just a little sweet without mint flavor in it. There is also rolling icecream at Icy Point for more variety of flavors and toppings.

Trivia night

Despite having organized a trivia night at my undergrad, I had never participated in an actual trivia night. But this summer, I have. It was a weekly trivia night in Centre Street Pub – a proper trivia night, because there are a lot of alcohol available. They don’t use computers to keep track of answers and scores, but instead having people writing answers onto sheets of paper. Unfortunately, the questions were quite niche (a lot on American military) and the MC’s voice was too soft given the loud crowd.

Others things to do

  • hike
    • lake george
    • adirondacs
    • lisha kill
  • visit downtown albany
  • visit new york city!

Appendix: All-purpose shoes

As a traveller with only one pairs of sneakers in my luggage, I had to think really hard about what shoes to buy. I wanted to do three things outdoors: playing ultimate, hiking, and jogging. Standing at Marshalls, I was looking at a share of running shoes and a pair of hiking ones. I ended up choosing the hiking ones because it feels like the most versatile. It was informed by my past trip to Banff, where I survived with only one pair of heavy hiking boots.

  1. So far, I have been more happy playing in pickups than playing in the practices at UTD Ultimate. I feel like high-level practice is not for me. I enjoy friendly games more, where people are not very competitive, only there for the fun, and are sometimes strangers. In that way, Ultimate pickups have been my go-to method in getting to know the locals when I came to new places. I was introduced to it by a friend in Singapore, then applied to it in LA, Banff, Minnesota, and now Schenectady. ↩

  2. Mental note of the names: Dan, Derek, Anthony, Adrian, Jeff, Double J, Hex, Josh, and Paul. ↩