Grounds, Philly, & S'mac

This weekend was crazy, CRAZY FUN! And crazy crazy. Friday Dan was very sweet and took the train up to where I work and so we could have lunch together (at Taqueria La Morana). It was decidedly less good than Tortillas, where we went a couple of weeks before. Apparently we've decided to check out every seemingly authentic Mexican restaurant in a 10 mile radius of my office.

Dan hung out and got some work done in the library for the afternoon, and then we took off to drive down to Virginia. Rather, stand still in traffic for an hour on the 476, and then drive. We stopped off at my parents' house in NoVa to have a yummy Indian dinner which my mom extraordinarily graciously and spontaneously prepared when we said we were hungry, despite having "closed the kitchen" several hours before. My sweet dad was particularly concerned about us continuing the drive so late at night (it was 9:30pm by the time we departed) but we decided to tough it out since our time at UVA was already going to be so short.

Luckily, traffic around those southern Virginia parts is slim to none, and virtually the only time we slowed to the speed limit was when a cop was driving several hundred yards in front of us. I really dislike driving around cops, it makes me nervous and antsy and I keep looking at them to see if they're looking at me. I can't bring myself to pass them, even if they're driving under the speed limit. So I hung back and another more courageous car pulled up even and slowly passed the cop, going at most 5 miles over. I was starting to get seriously annoyed with the cop who was just cruising along, and I was starting to wonder how long I'd have to endure the unspeakable pain of going the speed limit when all of a sudden, he pulled the other guy over. Yikes. I felt bad for the dude since he really wasn't going fast, anyway, but I was somewhat unkindly happy for the fact that the cop would no longer prevent me from going any speed I darn well pleased.

So we arrived at UVA at around 11:30 and set up shop and promptly went to sleep. Mmm sleep. For a long time. We finally woke up the next morning and got ready at an excessively leisurely pace and went to eat breakfast/brunch/lunch at Cafe Europa. Mmm yummy sandwich and tomato basil soup. Then we went to downtown Charlottesville and walked around and window shopped in little antique shops and bought giraffe scissors and "hankies" and patronized a closing Crabtree & Evelyn. We then hurried back to "grounds" for a quick dinner at Lemongrass, some of the best Thai food I've eaten. I'm sad to admit that their lemongrass curry and buckwheat noodles kicked Pattaya Grill and Thai Singha's trash.

Then on to sadly missing Priya's friend's show due to the fact that we couldn't find the theatre until 10 minutes after the start time. Presented with the fact that there was no late seating (due to the fact that the entrance opens onto the stage...uh??? who had that idea?) and no intermission, we went back and watched The Office. Oh how I can't wait until April 10th.

Sunday morning, we drove back up to Philly (4 hours!) and had lunch with two of my old suitemates, Meg and Liz. Both were back in town briefly, so we caught them before they headed to Boston/Miami and NYC, respectively. Then church for 3 hours, during which Dan organized a lesson, and then we departed for New York City for our friend Nastya's birthday at the restaurant S'mac. Who would've ever thought there could be a whole entire restaurant wholly devoted to macaroni & cheese? It was glorious - goat cheese, gruyere, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower...magnificent.

Then we drove home. And went to sleep. Apparently I'm still not alert enough to come up with a clever ending. So, the end.