C. and I went to XOCO for lunch one of the days we were in Chicago, after some hilarious cross-checking to see which Yelped restaurant was closest to this menswear store C. was intent on going to.

Lunch was sooooo delicious and I know I’m just ahhhh-ing all over the place but ;_; it was soooooo gooooooood sometimes I dream about it (I am only kind of kidding about that). We had…something as an appetizer…I don’t really remember the name of it… it was basically pork rinds with a really spicy sauce topping - they were good but got to be too much after a while. C. and I both agreed we should’ve just gone with the chips and salsa.

C. had the Cubana which was delicious, as far as I could tell from the one bite he let me have (>_<), and I had the pork belly vermicelli and the only coherent thought I can remember from the eating of that meal is - why can’t I eat pork belly forever?

:(

I feel like this trip made me a lot sadder than one would think it would have, all things considered…

Oh! Also, the best surprise/mistake - C. and I only ordered one churro, and without the dipping sauce, but by some wonderful mishap, we got three, and with chocolate dipping sauce. waaaah >o<

@seasquared (and @thatluciegirl) were kind enough to meet up with me when I was in Chicago! We had dinner at The Purple Pig and ahhh I was so spoiled during spring break I literally ate so much good food I cry a little every time I have to go to the dining hall for a meal (which is… every meal… so I am basically crying like 24/7).

Guys the meal was sooo delicious I can still taste the bone marrow even now :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 literally salivating (though maybe that is because I have been awake for over two hours and still haven’t eaten anything yet…) aaaaaaah :9

:9

;_;

Perfect spring break meal.

To @bergamot-tea and @herocountry, who asked about the hot dogs covered in mac and cheese - yes, indeed they are. C. found them on some website under “top 25 comfort foods in NYC,” so of course we had to go. I wasn’t completely sold, but he was adamant that if we did anything in New York, it had to be that. I had the chicken pot pie, which wasn’t nearly as exciting. In fact, it was so boring I didn’t even bother taking a picture of it. >:(

I expertly managed to pack all of what I was going to bring home in a backpack and a carry-on (as opposed to last year, when I paid $100 to ship my luggage and an empty suitcase home), so of course I managed to forget my camera charger and upload cord.

C. came to visit me again, and so did @emes, @JesssyMae, @ameliamw, and Braden, whose tumblr name is too long for me to remember. Breaks have come to mean one thing and one thing only for me: food.

A few of the truly excellent discoveries I made this break include: Taiwanese food (:999999), the Brooklyn Bridge (which I loved so much I promptly returned there appx. 5 more times in the span of a week), Shake Shack (which lived up to all of the hype, even if the cashier misheard me and gave me a hot dog instead of a hot chocolate…), and Gaia’s Italian Cafe (as a warning, anyone who visits me will be taken to lunch here. The most delicious paninis for $5!! and the nicest mother-daughter combo who owns it).

DISCOVERING IOWA was, most importantly, a trip of all the feel-good food in the world. Or at least in Iowa. And at least for me. Chris’ parents registered some skepticism when we told them we wouldn’t be cooking on the trip, but we survived somehow. The first night was a lil rough - we ate chips & salsa, bread & cheese, and pita chips & hummus from Trader’s Joe in our tent and I remember thinking desolately that that was what our entire trip was going to be like. Thankfully, I was proved wrong.

We all also somehow managed to sleep (fairly) (sort of) (well, you know) comfortably in that tiny orange tent. Keep in mind ‘we’ = three girls and two boys with all the limbs in the world.

On night 3 we decided what we really needed was a fire*~*~*~*~*~. Annie had bought an avocado at a farmer’s market the day before so we made some GRILLED CHEESE WITH SLICED AVOCADO.

:9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9

Night 2 we spent in Decorah, IA, which was probably the prettiest town we passed through on this trip. We also visited Chris’ friend at Luther College and the campus was SO PRETTY (excepting maybe that hilarious statue). Dinner was at Mabe’s Pizza, where we ate an embarrassing amount of food. WE ALSO GOT MOZZARELLA STICKS lol this is the most boring blog post ever.

We spent the night/the next day at Pikes Peak, and even though getting there was awful and it was cold and late and everyone was a little grumpy, we woke up to the most amazing sight of the Mississippi River. A little further up the trail was the Bridal Veil Falls, which made us all double-take and wonder for a second if we were all really still in Iowa. SO BEAUTIFUL. On our way out of Pikes Peak, we stopped at the Effigy Mounds which were also really cool, though we might have mostly just still been floating on the high from seeing the Mississippi.

~TO BE CONTINUED~ or something

DISCOVERING IOWA Day 1 (well technically it was day 2 as Chris so politely reminded me just now) was the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa which is apparently the largest grotto in the world. SO COOL. It wasn’t even in our original itinerary but Annie (middle in the third picture) found out about it somehow and so we decided to go. And i’m so glad we did! The drive there was just like blah blah podunk Iowa — BOOM, LARGEST GROTTO IN THE WORLD. So cool. I’m so glad we went.

Lunch was at the Wagon Wheel Cafe. Pictured above is my friend Sam’s 1/2 pound burger.

Back in Iowa! I’m a little sad. I always remember all the things I wanted to do at home when I get back to school. Last night I was feeling particularly homesick/sorry for myself so I laid down in my bed, turned on some sad music, and tried to write. I couldn’t actually bring myself to do it though - the practical side of me :|ed my melodramatic side into submission.

These are pictures from Monday, when I went with C. to Iowa City for dorm room shopping and then Williamsburg(, Iowa) and Brooklyn(, Iowa) for…The Iowa Experience? I had pizza and ice cream in Williamsburg, Iowa - felt a vague feeling during dinner that may or may not have been shame. The guy scooping my ice cream then asked me where I was from, on the grounds that my fashion was “too highbrow for Iowa”. :”) Not much of a compliment, considering, but I was still touched nonetheless.

My last weekend in New York :’( (well, until December, anyway): Pommes Frites, and a brunch date at M. Wells, where we got incredibly lucky and ended up only having to wait about 25 minutes instead of an hour. I got the escargots & bone marrow which was…well, it was good I suppose. The bone marrow was incredibly…fatty? Is that the right word? but amazingly seasoned, so. :9 C. had the eggs & potato hash which, well, how do you mess up eggs and potato, am I right.

Chang’an Tofu from Xi’an Famous Foods & a La Sureña Arepa (chicken, chorizo, and avocado :9) from Caracas.

A Monday made a million times more bearable with excellent food and conversation.

Today @satiata and I headed to ilili to do our God-given duty as human beings with taste buds and eat a meal that would otherwise not have been within our budget. A and I both enjoyed it immensely, and I’m super glad we decided to take advantage of Restaurant Week. The appetizers were by far the best part - we were allowed four between the two of us, so we had the sweet corn and cheese (:99), the tuna belly (:999), the grilled octopus (:99), and the mouhamara, a hummus-like dish made with walnuts, sun-dried peppers, and pomegranate molasses (my God, you could taste everything that went into it; delicious).

We were pretty much full by the time they served us the entrees - I had the risotto and A the fried skate. Both were alright, but nothing special. The appetizers definitely stole the show - I won’t even bore you with pictures of our entrees.

For dessert, I had the ilili candy bar, which was something like a Crunch bar and a brownie rolled into one (though more elegant than that description probably suggests), and A had milk Lebanese ice cream, which tasted exactly how honeysuckles smell. We spent a fair amount of time puzzling over how to best describe the taste and texture, and ended up eating it all.