Well-loved and broken in, they have rubber soles, frayed laces and cracked leather toes.
For many people, one of the most integral parts of being may be that pair of gray-strapped Teva hiking sandals, those rugged sand-colored Timberland boots or even a pair of plain Birkenstocks.
Some people have travelled all over the world and with each, footwear has followed - across oceans, over country borders, into different climates and topographies, with them every step of the way. Shoes, boots and sandals literally are their link to whatever's lurking underfoot.
First-year Engineering student Andy Spatz puts one of his black Nike sandals on the table in the Newcomb dining hall. The rugged looking black sandals have a single thick strap arching over the foot with the Nike symbol stenciled in white.
"Two summers ago I went to Israel and I wore them a lot," said Spatz who went with a Jewish youth group to the Middle Eastern country. The Nike sandals, bought exclusively for the journey, trekked through the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Southern and Eilat, to name a few.
The sandals had the privileged opportunity to go wading in the Dead Sea, a body of water located between Israel and Jordan.
The Dead Sea "smelled very sulphury but felt like regular water," Spatz said. "It's really, really hot. It's like 80 degrees and it's in this big valley so the sun just bakes it."
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Spatz said his shoes - and the feet in them - also enjoyed special treatment in the Dead Sea and the area around it.
"There are feet-deep pits built into the sand, filled up with this dark mud that makes your skin softer," Spatz said of the area around the Dead Sea. "My body was coated in black mud - I was in the pit with a bunch of friends. There were like 20 of us in there, we were having mud fights up the wazoo."
With a smile, Spatz recounts repeatedly soaking himself in mud and then running, sandal clad, into the Dead Sea to wash off.
Rainforest boogie
Extreme attachment to a certain pair of shoes is not unusual.
Second-year College student Laura Cornachio freely admits to having such a relationship with her treasured blue-gray Reef-brand flip-flops.
"Gosh, they are so wonderful," Cornachio said. "They must be six or seven years old now and they have the perfect foot mold. It's like going barefoot but with more support. They have been with me everywhere. They are world travelers."
Cornachio nearly lost her beloved shoes during a trip to Costa Rica. She was in the Latin American country the summer after her sophomore year in high school with a group that was "doing biological research and learning about the rainforest and ecosystems," as she put it.
In Tortuguero, a city situated along the coast of Costa Rica, Cornachio looked for sea turtles along the shore.
"You can't have light because it will startle the turtles," she said. "So I couldn't see the waves and this big wave came and took away one of my shoes."
After chasing down her shoe in the pitch black, Cornachio recovered it.
The shoes were in jeopardy once again when Cornachio and her companions decided to jump off the dock into a river bordering on the rainforest of Tortuguero.
"The floor of the river is sludgy, decomposing rainforest stuff, and if you touch the bottom, you might lose your shoe. They might stick to the bottom," she said. Cornachio yet again managed to salvage her beloved Reef sandals from this danger.
Since then, Cornachio has even bought a new identical pair of Reef sandals, but cannot persuade herself to wear them "because I like my other ones so much more and they are so perfectly worn in."
A Monte Carlo moment
"The guy at the door told me I couldn't come in because of my shoes," said first-year College student Ruth Selby who attempted to get into the ritzy Monte Carlo casino in France.
She was wearing her gray and black New Balance tennis shoes, which weren't classy enough for the fashionable night spot. Selby has been on two trips to Europe, and this pair of shoes has been with her both times.
The first one was a structured visit to Spain for an immersion program. The second, however, on which she was turned away from the Monte Carlo, was an informal trip with her brother.
Selby added that the New Balance shoes walked the soil of Spain, France and England. They visited the National Gallery in London, along with other sundry museums and galleries in the city. They also strolled through the Royal Palace in Spain and walked on the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
Selby also wore her shoes to Cannes, France, home to the well-known film festival.
"All the stars leave their handprints and signatures in the sidewalks in the cement and my shoes walked over that," she said.
Mosh Pit Madness
David Rogge, a first-year College student, speaks with a distinct fondness about his pair of black canvassed Nike sneakers, which he bought the summer before his junior year of high school. The sneakers traveled with Rogge on his first trip to California, on a visit to the renowned soil of Yosemite National Park, and on a 10-day canoeing trip into the heart of the Canadian wilderness.
But there was one fateful time when Rogge was almost permanently separated from his favorite footwear.
"I went to Ozzfest the summer before my senior year of high school, and I ended up in the mosh pit with this large group of people and then found myself without my left shoe," Rogge said.
With his left foot only protected by a sock and with everyone jumping around, Rogge got "down on my hands and knees on the floor, getting kicked around a little bit," until at last he came across his missing possession.
"It was soggy from beer, and there was an inverted beer bottle" inside his left shoe, he said. Relieved, Rogge didn't think twice about situating the shoe, despite its sogginess and stench, back in its rightful place, on his left foot.
But eventually, Rogge realized that his travels would take a toll on his cherished shoes.
"My mom finally made me get a new pair for college. It's true the old shoes were falling apart, and the lining was coming off," Rogge said. "But I still wear them for special occasions when I want to be extra comfortable."
From Spatz's Nike sandals receiving a cleansing mud bath in Israel to the extensive European tour that Selby's New Balance sneakers partook in, students agree that shoes are more than just foot protection. Instead, they're often a way of life.
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