Colgate's off-campus study programs also provide great opportunities for future spouses to meet. Traveling on field trips and experiencing different cultures for the first time brings Colgate students together and sometimes it keeps them together. In such instances Payne Creek is replaced by the Danube River and the twinkling lights of Budapest, that splendid Eastern European city, are substituted for the stars above campus. One such couple met while waiting for a train to New York City one evening. They were three years apart in age and both had graduated years earlier, but they recognized each other and one thing led to another.
Orientation appears to be fertile ground for future couples.
Often these initial campus encounters are memorable and sometimes freshman-year relationships carry through all four years and beyond. They said it was a magical day, sunny and warm as they tromped through freshly turned fields and newly budding forests. Eventually, they realized that they were lost but just as it was getting dark, they saw the brilliantly lit dome of the Colgate chapel, which guided them home. That was the day they fell in love. There were other stories of first-year sweethearts going to Olin Hall for Take Two movies, a cheap date, especially when the couples could sneak in concessions.