Living in International Village is actually pretty nice.

As I said in this post, International Village is a two-year-old residential hall open to upperclassmen and honors freshmen. It’s a bit isolated from the rest of campus, requiring a short walk across Ruggles Station to reach the rest of campus. Thus, Northeastern apparently designed International Village to be a sort of “campus of its own.” I wouldn’t exactly call it that, but it’s got some nice perks.

I mentioned before that the dorms are nice, but the building itself is too. We’ll start with the basics: International Village, unlike many of the residential halls at Northeastern, has air conditioning.

There’s a miniature gym for students’ convenience.

There’s a gorgeous bamboo courtyard nestled between the IV towers.

International Village is 22 stories high. It’s essential that we have multiple nice, fast elevators.

With 22 stories also comes a nice view. You can actually see Fenway Park from the upper floors of IV, whose bright lights stand out at night:

Those bright lights are Fenway Park, as seen from the 22nd floor of IV.

Boston in daytime. There’s a laundry room on the 22nd floor for kids to do their laundry and enjoy the view.

Every floor has an common area with a flat-screen TV.

Every even-numbered floor has a pool table.

But my favorite part of the whole building? Hands down the dining hall! IV’s dining hall, in my opinion, is the best on campus. It’s a certified three-star green restaurant (whatever that means) but more importantly, it’s unsurprisingly international-themed. The dining hall serves a variety of foods, including daily wood-oven pizza, Indian and Italian food, and my personal favorite…

Though I also dig that there’s sparkling water. I’ve missed it since Germany! However, the hall often runs out of milk, which is unfortunate.

Other features of International Village? A small computer lounge by the dining hall, which is nice. There’s some classrooms, though I have no classes here. IV is also “LEED Gold certified,” meaning it has green features such as “motion-sensor lighting, recycled building materials, low-flow showers and faucets, and a roof garden.”

So I rather like International Village. As my roommate aptly put it, Northeastern is “pampering” we IV kids. But hey, I enjoy it! Keep going NU!