X is for Xavier #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

I was about to skip over X and go to Y. That's twice this challenge I've done that. Clearly, the alphabet and I are having a critical difference of opinion.

Xavier University is one of many institutes of higher learning in Cincinnati--I tried to nail down an exact number, but apparently no one has bothered to count them. (Okay, actually, everyone has bothered to count them, but can't agree on the number.) Basically, if you want to learn things, you're in good shape here.

I read this guy's label, then promptly forgot who he was,
although reason would suggest he's Frances Xavier.
Anyway, he's at the entrance to vaguely gesture at people
as they arrive.

Xavier is a Catholic university, among the oldest in the country, and while I'm wildly out of the loop re: Midwest universities and how they've been getting on in my 20-year absence from the region, Xavier seems to be not too shabby in either academics or athletics. A handful of my coworkers went there, if all one hears is true, so I can at least vouch for some of Xavier's graduates being awesome.

I don't know what this is, but I kind of expect the Doctor
to turn up and point a sonic screwdriver at it.

Their mascot is D'Artagnan, certainly Chadwick's favourite of the Musketeers, which softens my heart toward Xavier already, even if they didn't have excellent bike parking.

But they do! Very well done, Xavier. So, re: the lack of human
activity... this was one of the stops on Susan's (not me; the other one)
Easter Sunday Tour of Cincinnati, but being as it was Easter
the Catholic school was on holiday. It was kind of creepy
wandering around not seeing any students.

Not sure about the presence of any bike lanes nearby, because I didn't look, but if the rest of the city is any indication it's lucky for Xavier students who travel actively that there are nice wide sidewalks surrounding them.

Like the one next to this sign, for instance.

Bellarmine Chapel on campus has a hyperbolic paraboloid roof (note to self: look up those words), so that even even if the walls were to come a-tumbling down, the roof would stay up, which I would call witchcraft except this is a Catholic university, so I'm thinking the roof has its own patron saint. I admit that would be useful to have.

The thing on the front is cool, too. I wonder if it's ever open to the public?