Food with Friends

I love my friends here. Such awesome people. Going on food adventures on 3-day weekends is always nice.

Saturday, 10/8/11
After teaching my ESL and Citizenship classes, Sarah, Audrey, Jon, Stef, and I all go out to have a little journey in Cambridge, from Harvard territory over to MIT territory in Kendall Square. There's a really nice independent coffee shop there called 'Voltage' and Sarah had heard really good things about their lattes. So it was time for us to find out!
We were far from disappointed.

 

After coffee-adventures, we went to the beach (we arrived around 6:30, but it was quite worth it. :])

   

Sidenote: Revere Beach (where we were at) is one stop away on the T from Wonderland--in fact, it's basically a 7 minute walk away. Pictures of "Wonderland" weren't exactly promising, though, so we decided not to go, for our safety.

Our final stop that night was Quincy Market. At first, I didn't recognize it because it was dark, but then I realized that I had been there with People to People in 2008. We were starving, and the food there was nice, so everything worked out perfectly. :)

Great night. :D

Saturday, 10/9/11 & Sunday, 10/10/11
Around 8pm, I received an email informing me that this local waffle place was offering coupons for 50% off; that is, when we buy a $10 voucher, they'd email us 2 of them. Great deal; AND, 5% of proceeds were supposed to go to the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter fund. Good food + altruism = Yay! At once, Sarah was aboard, and with a little persuasion, so was her roommate Stef. Then, soon after we received our vouchers, Sarah has this great idea of going to get waffles immediately. So we pack up and go, and meet up with Melanie on the way. The four of us enter this small but warmly-lit store that's above ground level, and I'm just swept with a feeling of Europeanism [they serve Belgian waffles]. We sit down and figure out a way to make it so that our orders total up to $40 so that we can use the vouchers most effectively [we don't get change.] 10 minutes later, we approach the cashier and put down our orders, and proudly hand him our vouchers. That's when we discover that they're not valid until the next day, so that the system has verification that the vouchers are real. Ooops. But, the allure of waffles at 9:30 is so great that we just whip out the money for our orders anyway, Sarah and Stef's without the coffees they ordered. Melanie and I decided that, what-the-heck, we might as well enjoy the experience, and so we kept ours; I ordered a mocha for $3.75, and Melanie got a macchiato (European-style) for $2. This is what the drinks turned out to be like:

Mocha was quite large--probably a Starbucks tall (which is actually a lot when placed into a cup). The macchiato was in a shot glass. :<


Post-waffles, I go to Lamont to do some actual work. I manage a little bit, but by 1am, Audrey, Ben, and I decide that it's time for some IHOP. And so we went. Jon joined us a little later.
This month, it seems that IHOP is doing an All-You-Can-Eat Pancakes promotion, so any order of pancakes can be refilled free-of-charge. Unfortunately, our stomachs are too small to take full advantage of the promotion, but we still went through 15 pancakes, 2 servings of scrambled eggs, and 2 servings of hash browns. :)



But now I'm stuffed and the coffee has long worn off. I'll just listen to some music for a little longer and then head to bed. Columbus Day, though I disagree with its implications, is loved because it means that I don't have classes today. :D
Time to study for some more midterms.