Hotels and hockey reign supreme in upstate New York

	Harvard icers beware! Cornell hockey fans will throw dead fish at you when you visit Ithaca. Ron LeBlanc/ SI

AFTER 2 A.M.: The Hot Truck is the Holy Grail of late-night food in Ithaca. It not only boasts awesome French bread pizza, but also its own language. The PMP (poor man's pizza) is the basic French bread pizza. If you want extra sauce, order it "wet," mayo and lettuce "grease and garden," and when it's 3 a.m., you're a little tipsy and you don't know what to order, say "WTF" and the Hot Truck staff will choose a pizza for you.

MUST-EAT: Ithaca has more restaurants per capita than NYC, so there are plenty of options, but one of the most renowned vegetarian eateries in the country is in Ithaca: Moosewood Restaurant did vegetarian before it was cool. Started in 1973, Moosewood is legendary in the restaurant world, and Bon Appetit named it one of the 13 most influential restaurants of the 20th century. If you are wary of vegetarian food, order one of their famous soups. We recommend the Moosewood Split Pea.

DOSES OF CULTURE: We've all been to Urban Outfitters and seen the "Ithaca is Gorges" T-shirt, but don't laugh, because the gorges are beautiful. At the Cascadilla Gorges, on the south edge of campus, you can walk over a suspension bridge and stand right above the falls.

ONLY AT CORNELL: Cornell is the only school where students can learn about drinking for credit. Hotel Administration 430: Introduction to Wines offers students the opportunity to learn about winemaking, its history and its culture. Each week students taste five to eight wines from Europe, Australia, the U.S., Africa and South America. If you are more of a beer man, then sign up for the seven-week "Anheuser Busch Seminar in Quality Brewing and Fine Beer."

Students who are under 21 can drink legally in both courses due to a New York state statute that allows underage alcohol consumption for educational purposes. Of course, if you're caught drinking underage at a bar, you won't be able to convince cops you were doing research.

IT'S A LIE: There is an urban legend that says Cornell has the highest suicide rate in the country. It's not true. Just because they have the gorges doesn't mean Cornell students jump off them all the time.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Harvard at Cornell men's Hockey, Feb. 18: The James Lynah Rink is one of the most feared places to play in college hockey no matter who the opponent is. Cornell students know hockey, and it helps that the rink outshines many of its larger Division I counterparts. The Big Red gets especially nasty when the Crimson comes to town, and by nasty we mean dead fish nasty. The tradition of throwing fish at Harvard players during introductions started in 1973 after a Harvard student chucked a dead chicken on the ice when Cornell upset the No. 1-ranked Crimson. It was an apparent slight to Cornell's agriculture school, and so when Harvard trekked to Ithaca, Cornell students greeted them by throwing fish on the ice.

PACK YOUR: Fish (see Mark Your Calendar). Whether you buy it in Ithaca or decide to bring an especially rank bass from home, you won't fit in at Lynah Rink if you ain't chucking some aquatic wildlife.

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